


The Rescue

by Adelina Le Morte March (Raphaela_Crowley)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Camelot, F/M, Kidnapping, Magic, Romance, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphaela_Crowley/pseuds/Adelina%20Le%20Morte%20March
Summary: When Aithusa accidentally summons Freya from the Lake of Avalon, naturally the first thing the Lady of the Lake wants is to see Merlin, but they are captured on their way to Camelot by Agravaine, and Morgana holds them prisoner as bait to lure Emrys into a trap. Can Merlin find a way to rescue Freya and Aithusa without exposing his secret to Morgana? Merlin/Freya Agravaine/Morgana
Relationships: Agravaine/Morgana (Merlin), Freya/Merlin (Merlin), Isolde/Tristan (Merlin)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 82





	1. The Arm in the Water

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This takes place in season four, when Aithusa was still small; I would say somewhere after A Servant of Two Masters but before Lancelot Du Lac. 
> 
> (Written February and March of 2013)

~ _Chapter One: The Arm in the Water_ ~

THE LITTLE WHITE dragon was young -a _baby_ still, really, only recently hatched- when she flew along the strip of shoreline above the lake of Avalon.

Below her, the lake shone like silver against a golden-mud pavement dotted with wildflowers, light pouring in from all sides, though the sun was above. The dragon's small shadow cast only minimal shade, dimming the smallest of silver sparkles glinting up from the water.

Letting out a little noise of pleasure, of _amusement_ perhaps, the dragon swooped down, meaning to dip her claw or the tip of one wing into the sweet, cold water.

A beautiful shimmering white hand, followed by its extending arm, glowing with scattered water droplets that were like pure samite, reached out from under the waves and caressed the white dragon gently with its long, smooth, lacy fingers.

Grunting, the white dragon leaned into the touch, enjoying it, then pressed her pale snout against the lake-lady's palm.

Flying just out of the fingers' reach, the white dragon let out another -almost _shrieking_ \- sound and breathed over the arm. A marking, of a Druid symbol, appeared on the inner part of the arm, materializing in a series of unsteady ripples until it settled, darkening -becoming more real somehow- and shone permanent black; ink that would never fade against the whiteness of the skin.

And, as soon as that happened, the dragon's magical breath shaking the lake's muddy bed ever so slightly, more than just an arm started to emerge from the lake's waters.

A beautiful dark-haired young woman stepped out and, breathless with amazement, waded over to the shore. The dragon stayed with her, landing on a nearby rock.

" _Aithusa_ ," breathed Freya. She glanced from the Druid mark on her arm to the baby dragon.

The Lady of the Lake knew of this dragon. She had seen her hatching, whilst scrying in Avalon, hoping to catch a glimpse of Merlin in Camelot. Most of the time, the water had been dark, blank nothingness, in her search for the warlock she so dearly missed; the last friend she'd ever had. Often enough to be discouraging, when it showed her anything at all, it had been nothing at all to do with the person she most wanted to see. (Although, she had to admit, seeing Morgause toying with the stolen Cup of Life, and learning what was going on by those means, had come in handy in the long run.)

But, three times, out of the hundreds she had tried to, she'd seen him. _Merlin._

The first was long before he knew part of her was still alive in Avalon. She wanted so badly to tell him she was not all dead and gone, that he need not mourn for her. But she couldn't, so telling him that he'd made her feel loved and swearing to one day repay him with her last mortal breath had had to be enough. She saw him forgive Arthur, smiling -even laughing a little- when the prince gave him a noggie, and she'd nodded approvingly at this. _Good boy._ She had known he would; his forgiving nature and loyalty was part of what made Merlin, well, _Merlin_.

The second was a miracle. The Fisher King gave Merlin a vial of water from Avalon, and her lover accidentally broke it, spilling out the water. That time, not only could she see him, but he could see _her_ too, and they'd been able to speak. They hadn't had long, but that was all right. It had given her the chance to see him again. And the chance to keep her word. He had come to her, at the lake, and she had reached out, holding aloft the sword forged in the breath of the Great Dragon.

Last, but certainly not least, had come the third time Freya saw Merlin via scrying. He was walking through a forest -evidently in the dead of night- bringing a dragon's egg he'd rescued from a tomb to Kilgharrah the Great Dragon whose breath had made a weapon that could kill what was already dead. She could hear them speaking, though the water created a kind of wet static that made some of their words less than clear and she had to pay close attention to catch the majority of the conversation. By that means, she learned his father was dead; that Merlin was the last Dragonlord, only Kilgharrah would no longer be the last dragon. And she saw, with her own eyes, the shell of the egg crack and the white dragon enter the world at Merlin's behest. Heard her old lover naming the beautiful creature -which Kilgharrah, poor thing, did not realize was female- _Aithusa_ , after the light of the sun.

A Sidhe flew past her line of vision and Freya had whipped her head around suddenly. When she looked back down again, the pool was blank once more and Merlin and both dragons were gone.

There was a reason only Freya's _arm_ had given Merlin that sword. She had lost, at death, after her mortal body was burned in the viking-like funeral Merlin gave her after she expired in his arms, the ability to appear as herself in the mortal world. In Avalon, she looked, of course, like Freya. The Sidhe didn't know her by that name, of course, calling her The Lady of the Lake the same way many of the Druids knew Merlin only as Emrys, but she still bore, on that side of the lake's portal, the face of the Druid girl who had once been Halig's prey and prisoner.

But on the other side...?

There was no telling what her face would be. No telling if it would be burned, scarred, or even just an ordinary face simply unrecognizable as _Freya_ to any who had known her in her previous life.

Her arm, though Merlin seemed not to have noticed, in all his excitement, hadn't kept its lifetime Druid mark, either.

That is, not until Aithusa came and, in her curiosity about the pretty arm that touched her, breathed upon it. She had _restored_ Freya, given the Lady of the Lake the ability to walk on as herself on _both_ sides of the portal.

Crouching on her knees before Aithusa on the rock, Freya looked into the creature's striking blue eyes. " _Thank_ you."

Aithusa made a cooing sound and rubbed her small head against Freya's brow, similar to how a kitten might love up on its owner's forehead.

Looking back at the lake of Avalon over her shoulder, Freya felt a thrill of excitement. This was her home now -her place she was sworn to be guardian of- but there was no reason, since Aithusa had restored her mortal half, she couldn't go away for a bit, as long as she remembered to return eventually. It would probably have to be sooner rather than later, even so, but it was better than nothing. Far, far better. She was almost _shaking_ with excitement at the prospect.

And the Lady of the Lake knew exactly where -or more precisely _who_ \- she wanted to use her new-found freedom to visit.

Camelot.

_Merlin._

MORGANA STOOD OUTSIDE of her hovel, looking cross. Agravaine was late. _Again._

She sometimes wondered, when as exasperated as she felt at that moment, why she even bothered to put up with him. He was not _her_ uncle; Ygraine had been _Arthur's_ mother. There was no reason for her to care much about his fate. But, despite this, when he so frequently had to leave her to go back to Camelot -to _Arthur_ , to keep up the pretense that he was, as always, his loving uncle, nothing more and nothing less- she kind of missed him. He loved her, at least, if that was worth anything. Morgana did not particularly return his feelings, and certainly she felt none of the blind devotion he seemed almost to worship her with at times, but she could still use it and didn't hate it. She might not have anyone left to be loyal to -there was nobody else in the world she loved after her sister Morgause's sacrifice- yet there was something -a dull ember's worth of a glow of warmth- in knowing that somebody could still love _her_. What she did or did not feel for them, in exchange, mattered not at all.

"Morgana!" There he was, tethering his horse to a tree and fast-walking down the hill towards her hovel.

She frowned, folding her arms across her chest. "You had better have a good excuse."

He _didn't_ , really, he was just late. _But_... "I have some news," he told her, his eyes flickering with an almost puppy-dog expression, craving her approval.

Arching an eyebrow, Morgana glowered coldly. "Is Arthur dead?"

"No, my lady."

"Is _Gaius_?"

"Well...no..." Agravaine willed himself not to stammer. Why did he always think Morgana would be so overjoyed, with every piece of news he carried to her, at great peril to himself, only to be bitterly disappointed each time by her embittered, irritated reaction?

"Do any of the knights of Camelot have so much as a lingering cough?" Her glower intensified, as though she already knew the answer.

"No."

"Then how could you _possibly_ have news that would please me?" demanded Morgana.

"It's about Emrys."

The effect of that name on the high priestess was instantaneous; she blanched and her arms fell down to her sides stiffly as she stared, expectant and a little nervous, at Agravaine. "What about Emrys?"

"Myself and some men happened to catch a lost Druid boy who was coming a little too near the direction of this hovel and we had to... _apprehend_...him."

"And?" Both eyebrows were lifted now, the expression of annoyance returning to her face along with a dash of spreading colour.

"And while he claimed he didn't know who Emrys was, he said a girl who was once a Druid, some years previous, but is now a sorceress of some sort known to the Druids as The Lady of the Lake, is looking for him."

" _Looking_ for him?"

"She is rumoured to be headed towards Camelot."

Morgana smirked hopefully, though she hardly dared believe her luck. "She's looking for him in _Camelot_?"

"Possibly."

"The boy babbled something about a Druid prophecy."

"What kind of prophecy?"

"It is said that the sorcerer they call Emrys is destined to fall in love with their lake-lady." Agravaine shrugged, then snorted. "Nonsense, of course, but-"

"No more nonsense," Morgana said slowly, "than Emrys being my doom."

"My lady-"

She held up a hand. "Silence." Her mind was formulating a plan. "If she is his destiny, would he come for her if something were to detain her from reaching him in Camelot safely?"

"He might," said Agravaine, stating the obvious rather unhelpfully.

"And then we would have him at our mercy." Morgana liked that.

"The sorceress-"

"She cannot be more powerful than a high priestess," Morgana decided. _Morgause taught me well._ "And I'm sure a clever man like you can come up with some clever way of bringing her to me."

He noted the condescension in her tone, and knew better than to take her words for a compliment, no matter how badly he might have wanted to. "Yes, I'm sure I could."

"Yes." Morgana's smirk deepened. "After all, everybody has a weakness."

_Not_ everybody, Agravaine mulled inwardly, _not you_. Morgause's death had made Morgana strong, without a weakness to be used against her, but it also made her cold; her heart was not warm and open to him.

As if reading his thoughts, choosing to ignore the underlying longing attached to them, Morgana conceded, "Well, nearly everybody."

"Of course."

"If Emrys' weakness is this woman," she went on, "we just need to find out what _hers_ is, and they will both be in our hands."

"My lady-"

"I expect you to find out what it is." She gave him a stern look and started to turn around, preparing to go back inside her hovel. Looking over her shoulder, she added, "When you come to me with _that_ , Agravaine, I will believe you do indeed have good news."

IT WAS THE dragon; the creature that accompanied the traveling lake-woman. That was the only noticeable weakness. She really seemed to care for the pale-coloured little reptile. She didn't eat much herself, but she always stopped to let the dragon eat, and stroked it absently when she rested, kind of dozing, her eyes half-closed, with her back against a tree truck, allowing that _thing_ to curl up in her lap like a pet dog.

In spite of the fact that he had hated Uther, from the moment Ygraine died giving birth to that foolish boy who now sat upon Camelot's throne as though he -and not the beautiful, exiled Lady Morgana- was Uther's eldest child and thus his rightful heir, right down to the minute when he was able to lend a helping hand in the king's untimely death so that he might get everything that was coming to him, Agravaine had to admit that maybe -just maybe- Uther had been onto something with his getting rid of the dragons.

Sorceresses and priestesses were beautiful souls, and Druids -the powerful ones, anyway- could sometimes prove useful allies, willing or otherwise, but dragons, even only in theory, were just overgrown lizards that blew their nasty fire-breath at anything that stood in their way, burning down homes and camps. No good there. Of course, if there was some magical property Morgana could discover in a dragon... But, then again, this particular slip of a dragon was not yet _much_ of one. A white rat with scales, more like.

"Capture the dragon," Agravaine ordered his men under his breath, gesturing over at the resting sorceress and her little friend. "If I'm right," he added, "she will do as you ask so he will not be harmed. She will not dare use magic against us if it means her beloved creature will be in peril."

A twig snapped somewhere deep in the forest, and Aithusa lifted her head.

Freya was sleepy and content. They were not far from Camelot now, and soon she would be very near Merlin. The thought was cheering, to say the least of it.

She was not sure, exactly, how she imagined she -her being a lake spirit and a sorceress to boot, and once, though he mightn't remember, a dangerous, blood thirsty Bastet the now _King_ Arthur had fought and ultimately killed some years ago- would get in, but she decided she would cross that bridge when she reached it. Surely a hooded garment of some sort -a cloak, perhaps- mightn't be too difficult to acquire, and she could slip in the gates, in the daylight so as not to look suspicious under the cloak of night, maybe under the pretense of getting water or something... Then she could just ask someone which quarters were Merlin's. She'd tell them she was an old friend, and that, yes, he would want to see her. That wouldn't be a lie, she didn't think. Or, if because of her Druid mark, which _could_ be discovered, now that it was back, if things went poorly, she really _did_ have to sneak in at night, surely finding him without directions wouldn't be _too_ difficult. How many personal menservants to the king, who were also physician's assistants could there possibly _be_ in all of Camelot, let alone the citadel itself? It wouldn't be hard to narrow down relatively quickly.

But, of course, she mustn't rely too much on his hospitality... No good putting him in danger of a conspiracy to harbor a sorceress...

Well, if after she was there and sized up the situation, such appeared to be the case, Freya could always find someone who didn't care either way to deliver a message to Merlin asking _him_ to come to _her_.

Aithusa was off her lap and flying low, close to the ground, turning her head around. The first twig had been too far away for Freya to hear (the dragon's keen ears alone had picked up on it) but another snapped, closer to them, and this time her head whipped around, too.

Something was wrong. Freya knew what it was to be hunted; she had spent a large portion of her cursed life running away from hunters, always looking over her shoulder. And someone was definitely tracking her every move now. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled with fear. She wished desperately for a dagger. She had some new powers as the Lady of the Lake, but she wasn't sure how many of them worked outside of Avalon. And this was no time to test them out uncertainly.

Aithusa shouldn't be flying so far from here, however close to the ground she'd remained, when someone was following them like this. " _Aithusa_ , come-"

Suddenly someone jumped out and snatched Aithusa, crushing her little white wings against her body scales, holding her fast however much she snarled and squirmed, even tried biting, to get away from him -for it _was_ a him, a great burly man dressed all in leather and silver- and back to Freya.

"Please, let her go," Freya tried. She knew it was in vain, though. This was not the first time she had seen unbreakable coldness in a hunter's eyes.

Agravaine stepped out, along with the rest of his men (only the biggest, and now the second biggest, who was helping him put her in a cage, were needed to catch such a small dragon, and he and the others could surround the sorceress).

Freya pushed back her hair, which till then had been hanging down in her face.

Agravine paused for a moment, genuinely surprised. He had been expecting a lady a bit more, well, _on_ in age. Even with her small, willowy form and long dark hair, he'd simply thought an at least _middle-aged_ face would have been hidden. This girl couldn't be much older than Morgana. She might even be _younger_ , if his guess was correct. Unless it was magic, showcasing her great power, that made her appear youthful. Spells dealing with age, Agravaine knew were difficult, simply because he had heard Morgana angrily bemoaning the difficultly once or twice when it would have been beneficial for her to have appeared older or younger than her real self. Personally, he thought she might one day master, if she kept at it, making herself appear as an old woman (he'd even thought of a name for an old Morgana: _Hilda_ , which she'd said was stupid though she'd been smiling when she said it), but never as a young maid of eight or nine, last high priestess or no. Easier to add years than take away from them was the general rule, so far as Agravaine could tell.

Still, somehow, he thought that this lake-sorceress really _was_ as young as she appeared.

And Emrys, her supposed destined love, was a doddering, ugly old man with a long white beard!

Such beauty -and _spunk_ , he saw, as she was struggling against his men as they tried to clasp her pretty little wrists in irons- to be wasted on that old, nasty sorcerer who'd attacked Morgana outside of her own hovel only a few weeks previous! Fate was very cruel to this one. He almost felt sorry for her. At any rate, at least she was excellent bait. If Emrys had ever seen her before, and if there was even the slightest hint of a man's desire in his being, he wouldn't be able to resist coming to her rescue. And then, once he'd fallen into their trap, Morgana would be safe from his meddling forevermore.

"Stop struggling," grunted one of the men. "Stop at once, or we'll break the dragon's neck." Another man, at his signal, got his great big meaty hands ready, as if to reach into the cage poor frightened Aithusa was imprisoned within and snap her throat like a chicken's.

Freya froze. She didn't doubt they could -and _would_ \- do it. This noble, infant creature -creature of _magic_ , no less- had restored her to life, brought her forth from the lake... She could not watch her be murdered right before her very eyes. Not when she could save her.

"Good girl." Her wrists were tied with cords as well as locked in irons by the time they were finished; and her feet were bound, too. Agravaine crouched next to her and stared into her sad brown eyes. "Well, Emrys sure likes them young."

He had nothing else to say to, or _about_ , her. That pretty much covered all of what he'd been thinking.


	2. The Prisoner in the Well

~ _Chapter 2: The Prisoner in the Well_ ~

IT WAS SO bitterly cold at the bottom of the bricked-up hole Freya found herself lowered down to the bottom of. She would have shivered, if she hadn't already been shaking so badly.

They had removed the cords from her hands and feet but left the irons still securely locked around her wrists, which were throbbing with a kind of physical soreness she hadn't been aware she was still capable of feeling, having felt nothing like it back in Avalon.

Aithusa was no better, trembling every bit as hard as the Lady of the Lake, the little white dragon was nothing _but_ shudders at the moment. Freya wrapped her arms around the baby dragon and clutched her to her breast.

_It's a well_ , Freya realized, as Agravaine's men moved something -a boulder, perhaps, roughly the size of the circular opening above their heads- that sealed off the light and most of the air, leaving only the minimal amount needed to breathe, much of which was quickly growing stale, behind. _He's trapped us at the bottom of some forgotten commoner's dried-out well!_

FOR JUST THAT one moment, Morgana looked truly pleased. Warmth than Agravaine was fairly certain was not merely heartburn from the spicy leftovers he'd taken from Camelot's kitchen earlier and then eaten shortly before capturing Freya spread inwards across his chest. For once, he thought he'd made Morgana happy. As happy as he always longed to.

Then her frown returned; first only etched between her eyebrows, then lower, as her lips pursed into an impatient pout. "And where is the dragon now?"

Agravaine blinked at her. "Why, he's with the sorceress, my lady. Of course."

"You trapped the dragon under the ground?" Something in the tilt of her head suggested there was only one answer she wanted to that question.

Unfortunately, in Agravaine's case, he couldn't seem to do anything _right_. And, moreover, the only answer he had to give was most certainly, no jesting, no muss, no fuss, absolutely, without shadow of doubt, the wrong one.

Perhaps, even if Agravaine was largely oblivious to this, Morgana knew -in general, or at least in _theory_ , since she'd never seen that particular creature for herself in spite of all those years she spent living in Camelot- Uther had once kept a dragon chained up in an underground location to 'teach a lesson' to those who practiced magic, and thought this might be means for someone to compare them, as Queen Annis recently had, causing her pride untold bruising and bitterness.

"Agravaine," she snapped, "I'm waiting. Tell me, is the dragon trapped under the ground, in the dried up well, with the sorceress?" She arched only one eyebrow then. "Or not."

"He is in the well with her, Morgana," Agravaine said, shrugging helplessly. "I told you."

She seemed to be holding back, but if she wasn't, she probably would have struck him. "What does the dragon look like?"

"Small, not very impressive."

"I should like to see for myself, if you don't mind."

"Of course," Agravaine groveled. "Of course. At once. If I'd known... If I'd thought-"

"Well, you _didn't_ think, did you?" Morgana pointed out. "And you rarely do. That's the problem." She sighed. "You may as well take me to see them both. I should like to have a word with the sorceress while I'm at it. No harm in that. Perhaps she may yet save us all a lot of time and tell us who Emrys is before he comes for her." Head held high, she took Agravaine's arm, roughly, but not without a touch of reluctant tenderness, as if to show she still had _some_ use for him, at least, and allowed him to lead her to the sealed-up well.

The men had gone, and Agravaine had to roll the stone away himself. He swore, afterward, that he almost had it -really and truly he had, and would have tossed it aside if he'd just been given another minute to take a deep breath and make the final necessary heave- but Morgana grew weary of watching him struggle and used her magic. It was much more efficient, and it was no concern of hers if it embarrassed Agravaine. The man could use taking down a peg or two anyway, as she was always having to remind him that the smallest of accomplishments he laid at her feet constantly, grinning as if he were handing her the _moon_ , were not so grand as he let himself believe.

"Hello down there," called Morgana, laughing a little.

The dragon let out a noise almost like a goose's honk (if it is not disrespectful to compare a noble magical being like a dragon to that of a brainless territorial bird like a goose), but Freya said nothing.

"I'm sorry if you had a difficult reception," continued Morgana. "Please understand it's nothing personal. Hard to know who to trust these days, for one. And, for another, I believe you may have some information that is of great interest to me."

Freya looked up at the high priestess, blinking in the bright light that hurt her eyes now that the late-day sun could reach the bottom of the well again.

" _Agravaine_ ," Morgana hissed, leaning over to whisper to him. "Are you sure you brought the right woman?"

"Positive, my lady."

"She's little more than a _girl_ , Agravaine." _If you have failed me so pathetically, I swear I will make your life_ hell _for this..._

"I can see that."

"Good. And here I thought you must be going _blind_."

"Morgana, there's nobody else it could be."

"Well, then." She considered. "She shouldn't be very hard to persuade to open up, if she's so young and scared."

Freya was scared, and she supposed young enough, but she would not betray Camelot. She knew enough to know that Morgana was no longer a friend to King Arthur. But Merlin still was. Morgana was nothing to her, it was only Merlin's opinion that mattered to the Lady of the Lake. Even now. Even captured and locked up and threatened.

A rope was lowered. At the top of the opening, Morgana was handing the rope to Agravaine. "Grab on. We'll pull you up."

Freya shook her head.

"Oh, come, come. Don't be like that. I only wish to talk."

"If I come out, the dragon comes, too," Freya finally spoke.

"Certainly." Morgana nodded. "There's no reason so noble a creature should be trapped down there, with no sunlight or room to grow, on our accounts." She smiled. "Now is there?"

"No," Freya agreed, gingerly wrapping her fingers around the rope.

Agravaine pulled her up, the dragon riding on her shoulder, flapping her bruised white wings haphazardly and without much visible effect.

Morgana looked her over more scrupulously, once they were standing before one another, each staring into the other's eyes. "You must be freezing." She thrust her arm backwards at Agravaine, silently ordering him to roll the rope up into a ball and put it away now that it was no longer of use to her. She could have done it with magic, but she had more important things to do, and she partly wanted to punish Agravaine for being so stupid. She had told him to _capture_ the sorceress and the dragon, so that Emrys would come to them, not put the dragon in a hole in the ground they could no longer get water from!

Freya nodded.

"Come with me." Morgana extended her hand.

Freya didn't take it, only trudged along at her side, as if each step were on hot coals and pure torture for her to have to take. In a way, it was. Freya wanted nothing from Morgana, save to be let go.

"You have a beautiful dragon," Morgana commented, to fill the awkward silence that followed.

Freya shrugged. _She's hardly_ mine _. She's a creature of magic, belonging to no one. If anyone's, though, she'd probably be Merlin's. He's the only Dragonlord left, anyway._

They came to the front door of the hovel.

Freya grimaced.

"Dreadful, isn't it?" Morgana stated. "No worries, when I take the throne of Camelot, I shall have a far better place to entertain my friends and allies."

_I think I would rather die again, or be confined back to Avalon forevermore, than see that day._ Freya knew she looked sullen, as her grimace faded to naught but a lingering wince and nose-curl of displeasure, and decided to do nothing to hide it.

"After you." She held the door open for her.

Agravaine had finished rolling up the rope and was standing behind her, holding up a sword, just to remind Freya she had no choice.

But at least Aithusa was with her. And the dragon was spared somewhat, as she didn't seem to realize how much danger they were in. If anything, she looked almost happily at Morgana, like she thought the high priestess was a benefactress who had _rescued_ them from the hole. She was a little confused, it would appear, as to why Agravaine, who'd captured them, lingered -why Morgana didn't use her magic to vanquish him- but she might have believed, at first, that _Agravaine_ was actually the prisoner being held hostage by the high priestess, not herself and Freya.

Some food was spread out on the table. Freya was appalled that it had not been rid of cobwebs, wondering how Morgana could wallow in such intense self-pity that she never thought to tidy up. Or maybe Agravaine was supposed to do the washing up around there but was lazy because he was a nobleman and too busy being a traitor, going back and forth from Arthur's all too trusting court to Morgana's waiting hands. The food itself was clean, however. The bread had no mold, the venison no bad smell, and there was even a sweet-smelling soup broth somewhere about.

There was also a whole ham Freya suspected was stolen from Camelot's kitchen. No guess as to _who_ took it... Agravaine would do far more for Morgana than steal a pound of meat from a hot-tempered cook here and there. Freya wasn't sure how she knew the cook at Camelot was hot-tempered, she just _sensed_ it, somehow. Perhaps it was her connection to Merlin, who lived in Camelot and knew far more about the other servants in Arthur's castle, that guided her subconscious.

Agravaine pulled out a chair and Morgana motioned for her to sit.

Freya sat, numbly, hands in her lap like a young girl attending lessons against her will.

"Please, eat." Morgana gestured at all the food. "You must be hungry."

Her stomach growled in a traitorous manner, but she vehemently denied it. "I'm fine."

"As you like."

Agravaine reached to cut himself a slice of the ham, if Freya wasn't going to have any, but Morgana slapped his hand away. "Ouch."

"What is your name?" Morgana asked.

Freya stared at her hands.

"At least tell me this," she tried. "You are the Lady of the Lake, are you not?"

"I am."

"And you know of a sorcerer who goes by the name of Emrys?"

"Why are you asking me all these questions?"

"It's the least you can do, answering a few simple questions," said Morgana, a mite sharply. "After I ordered Agravaine to take you out of that well and brought you here so you might eat, as an honoured guest, while we talk."

"I've learned when not to trust people," Freya murmured. "I know I am your prisoner, not your guest."

"If that is how you want it, I can easily have you put right back," Morgana reminded her. "As it stands, I would rather you be a mere politically detained guest than the alternative." She put down her knife, after cutting into a piece of venison. "But the choice, dear Lady of the Lake, is entirely up to you."

"We've done you a good turn," Agravaine felt the need to put in. "Did you really _want_ to end up in the arms of a stinking old-"

Morgana craned her neck and glared at him. _Silence, you fool!_ It was no good if the Lady of the Lake learned too much from their lips. If she didn't already know she was destined to belong to Emrys, and that that alone was what kept her here as bait, then why should they spoil the surprise prematurely?

"I'll tell you nothing." Freya swallowed hard and cleared her dry throat.

"If I was in your position," Morgana said truthfully, "I would sell my soul for someone to show me kindness such as this."

"A meal would be your price for a secret?"

"So you _do_ know something of Emrys!"

"Not much by that name."

"Oh, you owe him no loyalty," Morgana coaxed. "We're your friends here, if you will allow us to be. Why will you not tell us what you know? Or at least what name you call Emrys by?"

"I don't expect _you_ to understand." Freya shook her head, blinking back tears. "You have no sense of loyalty."

Morgana was stunned. Someone had said something very like that to her before - _Merlin_ had, in fact... How strange it was that the Lady of the Lake should remind her of _him_ of all people. Indeed, that was the one thing that kept her from liking Freya. They were both sorceresses, and if she envied Freya's dragon it was not a cold, nasty sort of envy that caused deep hate, but there had been, this whole time, something in her that Morgana had wanted to smack. Hard. Now she knew what it was. The Lady of the Lake and Arthur's manservant shared that same angry, unyielding, self-righteous, condemning look in their eyes, as if they wanted her -but did not _expect_ her- to regret everything that she'd done. Merlin had looked at her, _just like that_ -just like her current prisoner looked at her now- when he'd practically _bragged_ about his accomplishments when she'd brought up how he had thwarted her plans to take over Camelot, condemned her sister to a slow and painful death, and forced her to live in a hovel.

The high priestess _hated_ the Lady of the Lake. _Hated_ her. Wanted to see her head rotting on a pike while crows picked at her eyes so that they would never look at her like that ever again!

"Put her back down the well," Morgana ordered.

"My lady?" Agravaine was shocked by the sudden venom in her voice.

"You heard me."

"At once." He started for Freya's chair, to pull her up out of her seat and drag her out of the hovel.

"Oh," Morgana added, her eyes as hard as ice. "And don't bother lowering her down gently. It's no concern of mine if Emrys finds only her corpse when he arrives. So long as he comes."

Agravaine, prepared to take Freya and the dragon, was just grasping Freya's elbow when Morgana spoke again.

"You can leave the dragon with me." Morgana couldn't explain it, she just felt a strange bond between herself and the little dragon.

It was a feeling she had not felt since losing Morgause. Once, she had loved a little boy called Mordred, believed there was a bond very like this between them, but as far as she knew, since the last time she'd seen him the Druid camp he'd been in had been raided under Uther's orders, he was probably long dead. Indeed, if she hadn't noticed what Agravaine failed to, that Aithusa was in fact _female_ , she almost might have thought -or at least hoped- that somehow her dear Mordred had come back to her reincarnated in the form of this beautiful, pure-hearted dragon baby. But of course that was all rubbish; those you loved most of all never returned from the spirit world. Morgause was gone, probably Mordred too. And Uther. She would never _regret_ killing him, but sometimes late at night she found she missed him terribly. She had had a dream, two nights previous, that was more of a memory. In it, she had been a little girl, badly frightened when a horse threw her -this was before she became a skilled, unworried horsewoman- and bruised -both physically and in pride, as Arthur had laughed at her- and Uther had been her sole comforter. He'd even slapped Arthur upside the head for her sake. She woke crying, then hastily brushed the tears away. Uther was pure evil and he'd needed to die; she didn't like remembering any time period when she didn't believe that. At any rate, she would be good to the dragon.

Alas, in spite of feeling something towards Morgana, too, the moment Aithusa realized the high priestess was _letting_ Agravaine take Freya away, probably back to that awful _hole_ , she went into a mad frenzy, trying to roar and flapping her wings about angrily, taking off and flying all over the hovel and banging into the walls and smashing into the wooden ceiling beams.

In an attempt to comfort and calm the dragon, Morgana reached up her hands as Aithusa flew over her head. This failed, as Freya -at exactly the same moment- let out a little cry of pain when Agravaine -possibly from fear of the wild magical creature, however small in size it was, going absolutely berserk indoors- squeezed her arm too tightly. Reacting, still in a panic, Aithusa attacked, leaving Morgana with a scratch on her arm and a tear in the black lace sleeve of her dress.

Letting go of Freya and thrusting her, face-first, to the floor, Agravaine raced to Morgana's side. "My Lady! You're hurt!"

"It's nothing," she said hoarsely, clutching her arm and clotting the minor bleeding. "Only a scratch."

"That thing attacked you!" cried Agravaine. "It drew _blood_!"

"I _said_ , I'm fine," she growled.

Knowing Aithusa was close enough to follow, Freya tried to use this as a chance to escape, rushing for the door.

Morgana let go of her hurt arm and raised her hand, eyes flashing. Then, pulling back her hand, she magically yanked Freya backwards, leaving her lying flat on the floor, moaning softly.

Looking down at her, she hissed, "I would not try that again, if I were you."

_Aithusa..._ Where was Aithusa? Freya opened her eyes halfway and tried to locate her. _She is not in Agravaine's immediate reach just now. That's all that matters... I can try to fight back..._

She felt almost unbearably weak, but the Lady of the Lake knew she had to attempt to do _something_. This might be her last chance. " _Oferswing_!" croaked Freya, hoping she was thinking of the right spell. Even so, she wasn't sure she was pronoucing it correctly. Her eyes glowed, yet only faintly, more pale white-yellow than the intended magical dragon-gold or sorcerer-orange hues.

Morgana felt as if someone had given her a little shove and staggered slightly.

Freya let out a helpless, raspy breath, struggling to lift herself off the floor.

Steadying herself, Morgana snickered, "You're clearly no match for me. You're just a makeshift little nature-guardian sorceress. I am the last High Priestess of the Old Religion."

Agravaine finally caught the dragon and stuffed it into his cloak like she was naught but a squrming puppy he was dog-napping.

"You should have answered my questions, been a friend to us," said Morgana, once Freya was standing again. "And the sad thing, the really sad thing, is you _will_. I _can_ make you tell me all you know, however limited that may be. Rest assured, I'm only having Agravaine put you back to give you some time, hungry and stuborn and knowing what is to come, to think about the poor decision you've made. I truly hope, if you survive this, you will consider your potential allies and enemies more carefully in future."

Aithusa managed, screaming, to stick her head out from underneath Agravaine's cloak.

_I'm sorry..._ A flicker of gut-wrenching emotion showed itself on Morgana's face at the sight of the dragon. _Why won't you be my ally, little dragon? We are kin,_ magical _kin. With me, you would always be protected. That silly child-sorceress cannot defend you! Why are you so loyal to_ her _? The fated bond is between_ us _; can you not_ feel _it?_ But, for now, she could not force the dragon to join her side. There might be time later, after they were rid of Emrys once and for all, to kindly persuade the dear creature into her arms.

Or, at least, she hoped there would be.


	3. Sorceress of Rumour

_~Chapter Three: Sorceress of Rumour~_

IT WAS AN ordinary day. Royal socks that needed laundering, rather spoiled horses who needed their stalls mucked out, and a group of knights who were expecting to do a little moving target practice later that afternoon.

Honestly, Merlin was already wincing with negative apprehension at that last one, and it wasn't even one o' clock yet.

Sure, Arthur's socks smelled like death, but he was used to that. Same with the horses, more or less, though the young warlock _did_ hold a secret vendetta against whoever had fed one of them cold leftover goose mixed with applesauce, as it had resulted in the horse in question leaving him a very nasty surprise when he went to muck out his stall; he swore he would give the person who'd done it a good what-for. That is, just as soon as he figured out who it was. None of the knights, or other servants, were willing to confess to that particular abomination (the wafting odor had been rancid enough to upset, not only Merlin, but a few of the royal stable-hands working nearby as well, and then Arthur had gotten involved, which apparently scared the culprit stiff). At least he could rule out George. He was boring as hell, thinking brass was the new crass as far as humour went, but he sure knew his chores and preformed them to perfection. In short, _he_ would never make such a stupid mistake. However, neither socks nor horses with unfortunate bowel movements were quite so bad as having things flung at you. Merlin had been positive that at least a couple of times, in the last few weeks, Arthur -and occasionally Elyan and Leon- were actually trying to hit _him_ instead of the target he was holding.

Before he got to the socks, horses, and then the potential maiming, though, Merlin had to finish cleaning Arthur's boots. Some of the mud was so caked-on it seemed utterly hopeless. And Arthur wouldn't tolerate him falling behind on his chores over a muddy pair of boots.

What he needed, he thought, was some serious power. Something stronger than his arms and scrubbing hands.

He _could_ try to use magic, but the corridors seemed to be particularly busy that day, servants going to and fro, and it wouldn't do for them to see that. Gaius was always telling him to be more careful about that sort of thing, after all.

Suddenly an idea came to him. Merlin smiled to himself, thinking of the butter churn in the castle kitchen.

A few good churns really ought to loosen that hard dirt up enough to make the boots cleanable. Better to get caught using something he wasn't supposed to be messing with than to be hanged for sorcery...

Then again... Getting hung by the neck till death, getting caught by Audrey the evil-tempered royal head chef who evidently thought she _owned_ the kitchen... It was a hard call as to which sounded most utterly _fun_.

Audrey had never liked him to begin with, but after he -thanks to Morgana- had been under a magical compulsion to try and kill Arthur, Camelot's so-called finest chef seemed to have become his mortal enemy. Not because of any great love she had for Arthur (to that very day, in fact, neither she nor Arthur, nor _anyone_ , save for Gwen and Gaius, even _knew_ he had been trying to kill the king). No, it was because he had told her, while under Morgana's control, that she stunk worse than her food.

Merlin _did_ feel badly about that, even if he didn't actually _remember_ the incident, but she probably deserved it if anybody in Camelot did. She was pretty mean to the knights -especially Gwaine- when they came to beg for -or pilfer- the occasional snack. None of the servants who worked under her liked her much, either, because she was always threatening them. Gwen once told Merlin that when she washed dishes in the kitchen, Audrey used to be so sharp towards her that she'd cried many a time before she learned to tune it out, that it didn't really mean anything. Especially now that everyone knew how Arthur felt about Guinevere the serving-girl; Audrey would have been a fool to upset her enough to approach the king about her conduct.

"Mur- _lynn_!" Arthur's voice bawled furiously from three corridors away. "Why aren't my horses' stalls clean?"

Merlin sighed heavily, looked at the boot in his hands again, and then quickly made up his mind. He'd give it a go (the butter churn idea, not magic). Here was hoping he didn't get caught.

Rising from his place, he swiftly dashed out of the room, clutching the boots to his abdomen, listening carefully, while he turned the first corner, for his master's continued bellowing hollers (now of " _Socks_ , Merlin! I need socks! Mur- _lynn_!"), so as to make sure to go in the other direction on his way to the kitchen. He seriously did not want to bump into Arthur until the whole 'dirty pair of boots' matter was settled.

Once safely in the kitchen (and, thanks be to the gods, no sign of Audrey -or Arthur- anywhere thereabout), Merlin breathed a sigh of relief, made sure the butter churn was empty, then promptly and unceremoniously stuffed the king's boots deep down into it. He might be making a big mistake, of course, and ruining them, but this was getting steep already and called for near-desperate measures.

He was just about to start churning, when the back door swung open.

A relatively short hooded figure stood in the doorway.

Merlin turned and glared defensively at the intruder. How had they gotten by the guards?

"Merlin?" a strangely familiar voice whispered urgently.

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "Yes?"

The figure pulled back his hood, revealing a curious face with near-set blue eyes and a head of close-cropped sandy-coloured hair.

Merlin knew this face immediately, though it took him a moment to be absolutely sure this person, who although not so much as an inch taller had grown slightly longer in the face and a surprisingly great deal older in expression, was who he thought he was. Not to mention the way he carried himself had changed, too. He no longer acted, as Merlin remembered him, like someone who ought to be superior, looked up to, yet was not, kicked around and ill-favored instead. No, he seemed calmer, tranquil somehow. He was no longer a shadow, trapped inside the mists in his own torn heart and mixed morality; he was a man, and a magician both, uncorrupted, finally comfortable in his own skin.

"You probably don't remember me," he began.

"Gilli!" cried Merlin, finally. How could he forget him? The boy from the tournament with the magic ring, who had almost killed Uther unfairly but turned out to be rather a good egg when all was said and done. They were kin by magic, after all.

Gilli smiled, as if he hadn't _really_ thought Merlin would forget him. Yet there was a faint weakness to his smile, as if he were deeply troubled by some pressing issue.

Suddenly Merlin felt a pang of fear. Uther was dead now, surely Gilli knew that. But Arthur still hated magic. If Gilli had returned, misinformed, prepared to live with his magic inheritance on display for all Camelot to see, thinking Arthur tolerant of their kind already...

But such was not the reason Gilli had come back to Camelot. He knew the rumours, if not the whole story, as to how Uther had died, supposedly right after a sorcerer had come at Arthur's request to try and heal him from a grievous wound. He had a message to deliver. He needed to beseech Merlin for help. Not for himself, but for another, for a woman -a water dwelling sorceress- he'd never even met.

Looking both ways, Merlin hustled Gilli all the way inside and shut the door behind him. "It's good to see you again, Gilli." He gave him a light hug.

"And you."

"You're looking well."

"I am. Well, I mean."

"Where have you been all this time?"

"Every place you can imagine," chuckled Gilli, a faraway look flickering across his face as he recalled his recent adventures. "I'd spent some time with the Druids, they seemed to understand me. But there were other companies of people like us, too. And sometimes I was just on my own. Nuffin for it, but I think I was safer just by himself then. Seems that witch-hunters these days think sorcerers only travel in packs. Don't think much of me alone."

"You know you run a great risk," Merlin made certain, "coming to Camelot like this?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed 'bout that."

Merlin swallowed.

"But that's not what brought me here."

"Then what did?"

"There's a lore, going 'round with some of the Druids," Gilli said. "About a woman they cast out when she was little more than a girl. They say she's a rogue sorceress now, but not a harmful one. In fact, some believe she actually died or somethin' after they kicked her out of their camp and came back to life as a powerful magical guardian; a good spirit."

Merlin felt his breath catch momentarily in his throat. He thought Gilli couldn't possibly be talking about who the story reminded him of...of his beautiful, lost love Freya...but the tale...the girl mysteriously cast out by Druids, lost and alone for who knew how long...then death, and an unexpected return...was similar enough to stir up old emotions.

"People're saying now," he continued, "that she was recently captured, by Morgana Pendragon, King Arthur's sister and the last High Priestess of the Old Religion."

"Captured?" the warlock echoed. "Why?"

"Torture probably." Gilli shrugged uncomfortably. "She might think the sorceress has information she wants. Or it might be because of the dragon."

Merlin's eyes widened. "What _dragon_?"

"A little white one, they say."

" _Aithusa_ ," he breathed.

"You _know_ this dragon?"

He could trust Gilli. "I called it forth from its egg."

"Well, they say they were traveling together, the sorceress and the dragon, when Morgana caught her."

Merlin shuddered involuntarily. "The poor sorceress." _And poor Aithusa, as well!_ What cause had Morgana to mistreat Aithusa? To lock her up so that she might grow crippled and cramped without sunlight, perhaps? The little dragon was a creature of magic. Was not magical freedom what Morgana claimed to be fighting for? Then again, Merlin had long suspected she'd gone over the edge and was really only interested in her own petty revenge and 'right' to the throne of Camelot. All the more reason to support Arthur over her.

"I know the king hates magic," Gilli said softly, shaking his head, "but he also is said to hate injustice. You... His servant.. He would listen to you, wouldn't he?"

Merlin willed himself not to snort at that.

"Try to talk the king into sending some knights to rescue her."

Folding his arms across his chest, Merlin mumbled, "Why don't the _Druids_ sent a rescue party, if they're so remorseful for failing to protect her?"

"They don't want to fight Morgana." Gilli shrugged. "They peaceful. Morgana is also a magical being."

"She does not use her power for good," grunted Merlin. "Besides, you think _Arthur_ will want to fight her? She used to be his friend, a long time ago. And she's his sister." _And she's harmed -and often enough_ killed _\- knights of Camelot who've tried to stand up to her in the past..._

" _Merlin_ ," Gilli pressed. "You're her last hope. There's no one else to turn to."

"The Druids won't help her?"

"No, I've _told_ you."

Well, he couldn't leave the poor sorceress in Morgana's vengeful hands, however hard it might be to try and persuade Arthur to help her. There was no telling what she would do to her. It could have been _him_ , held captive by Morgana. Indeed, it recently _had_ been. And he was a Dragonlord... He couldn't refuse to help Aithusa. What would his father say, if he were alive? How horrified would he be that his own son, who he died for, proved to be lily-livered enough not only to abandon a damsel in distress but also a _dragon_ he was sworn to command graciously, protect, and be good kin to? Kilgharrah would be furious, too. Moreover, his own conscience would never give him any peace.

"I'll speak to Arthur," he promised.

"Thank you, Merlin."

"And if he says no..."

Gilli paused, half ready to go yet posed waiting for Merlin to finish.

"...Then I'll have to go on my own." He'd taken the Fomorroh from Morgana's hovel... A woman and a dragon would be a bit trickier, but he would have to do it if Arthur -as he feared he would- was unwilling to hunt down and raid his own half-sister's dwelling place for the sake of a sorceress.

ARTHUR'S NOSE WRINKLED obstinately, looking very much like he wasn't about to listen. "What-"

"I-" Merlin grimaced.

"- _Have_ you done to my boots?" He held up a pair of badly beat-up leather boots that looked like they'd been through a storm (or a butter-churn, though Merlin hadn't exactly volunteered that information).

"Yeah, sorry about that... _Listen_ , I need to talk to you about something."

Arthur sighed irritably and thrust the boots across his chamber. They made a loud _thump_ on the opposite wall.

"Arthur..."

"Keep this up and I _swear_ I will replace you with George, brass jokes or no brass jokes."

_Right_... Like Arthur would ever really do _that_. Merlin was about as worried about _that_ eventuality as he was about a random piano falling on his head as walked through the lower town. "Arthur!"

"How many times to I have to tell you, Merlin?" He frowned. " _I_ decide when we talk."

"Very good, Sire," he managed through clenched teeth.

"God! Don't stare at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Like you want to shove me out a window, then pick me up, drag me back here, and drop me down some _more_."

_Hmm, tempting..._ But Arthur wasn't going to be able to help the sorceress and the dragon if he was dead. Oh, yeah, and Merlin would probably _miss_ him, maybe a little.

"All right, what _is_ it, Merlin?"

"There have been rumours that Morgana is keeping a lady hostage." Best to keep the part about her being a sorceress under wraps as long as possible where Arthur was concerned, he thought.

"That is unfortunate," Arthur stated, nodding sympathetically. "Is her family of Camelot?"

"I don't know."

"She's an ally of the court, then, I presume? Or the daughter of one, more likely?"

Merlin shrugged.

"I'm sorry for her misfortune, falling into Morgana's hands, but I cannot risk guards without due..."

All right, time to tell the truth. But not the part about the dragon; he still had to think of a good excuse for when Arthur saw the creature and realized the egg had not been destroyed with Julius Borden. "She may be a...er...sorceress..."

"A _sorceress_?" He stiffened. "A reason to leave her where she is." He knew _Uther_ would have tracked her down then have had her executed without trial, scarcely batting an eye; but this wasn't his dead father's problem. This was _his_ choice. Still, a sorcerer had more than assisted his dying father to the grave. He had no reason to be kind to a strange woman with magic, whoever might be holding her captive.

"Sire, if she's not powerful enough for an ally, Morgana probably means to use her as leverage against someone with _more_ power. She may attempt to attack Camelot with this blackmailed help. We could protect-"

The door opened behind them, and Agravaine walked in, grinning at Arthur as if the very sight of his nephew standing there was his heart's delight. "Arthur, I'm sorry to barge in on you like this-"

"Nonsense, Uncle," said Arthur. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing save that I wanted to apologize, before anyone could say one way or other..."

"Apologize for what?" He blinked, puzzled.

"For missing the last counsel meeting." His grin turned sheepish.

Or, at least, he probably _meant_ for it to appear sheepish. To Merlin, it looked more fox-like and sly, wolfish maybe, but not reminiscent of a _sheep_ in the least. He couldn't understand how that stupid, obviously devious expression could fool _anyone_ , let alone the king. Then again, that might have just been because he knew the truth. Besides, Arthur was blinded with family affection (this seemed to run rampant with the Pendragons in general). He only hoped Arthur would be strong enough not to fall apart the way Uther had on account of Morgana, should the truth ever be revealed.

"Nothing too important was discussed, Uncle," began Arthur.

Agravaine held up a gloved hand, stopping him. "No, it was my duty to be there, and I failed you. Which is why there is a need for me to offer my most humble apology. I swear, I would not have been kept from your side with you in need of guidance and advice, had my horse not thrown a shoe in the forest."

Merlin frowned. _Liar_. He was probably with Morgana the whole time. He'd gone missing, and clearly been glued to _her_ side, quite a bit since Merlin -as old Dragoon- had knocked her unconscious outside of her own hovel. _I wonder how Morgana likes_ that, he pondered. _Being smothered by attention she probably only harbors because she needs a traitor here at court._ Morgana was not one to take kindly to excessive coddling, especially in her embittered frame of mind.

Arthur chuckled and raised his eyebrows simultaneously. " _Honestly_. It's all right."

Agravaine breathed a phony sigh of relief.

"Perhaps you can make it up to me by helping solve a dilemma now..." He gestured over at Merlin. "My manservant has told me that Morgana-"

_Nooo!_ Merlin broke into a forced coughing fit.

Arthur turned his head and stared at him blankly.

Perhaps he ought to pretend to choke on his own spittle or something. They already thought he was stupid enough to go that way... Anything to distract from Agravaine, who had to be in on Morgana's plan and mustn't know that they were aware of the sorceress and the dragon being held hostage, being included in their former conversation.

Arthur just blinked indifferently until he reluctantly stopped coughing. Merlin had tried to keep it up as long as possible, but of course he couldn't cough _forever_.

"Anyway, Morgana-"

Merlin knocked over a -thankfully empty- chamberpot, making a sharp _clang_.

"Morgana," Arthur persevered, "reportedly has a sorceress captive."

"And what concern is that of ours?" Agravaine asked.

"I'm not sure."

"Arthur, tell me you are not thinking of rescuing her."

"No. That is... I'm not certain, but possibly the wisest course of action..."

"Arthur, listen to me," Agravaine said sharply. "Magic killed your parents. You don't want to meddle with a sorceress, whatever danger she may have put herself in. Surely she knew the risk when she came so close to Camelot. Magic users are not welcome..."

"Morgana is in _Camelot_ ," Arthur repeated.

Agravaine flushed red. "No. I mean, I guessed she must be, and the sorceress..."

" _Uncle_..." His stare hardened. "What are you not telling me? Do you know where Morgana is?"

"No, Arthur, I swear..."

"Don't lie to me." He took a step closer to him, gaping disbelievingly. "You as good as said you knew she was in Camelot."

Merlin fought against a smile, biting onto his lower lip. _Go Arthur! That's it, use your brain and_ think _for once, and you'll see what Agravaine's really been doing!_

"All right, I confess I knew Morgana was on Camelot soil." He swallowed hard. "But I promise you, on your mother's soul, I was never privy to the exact location. My men tried to follow her, to protect you and Camelot, but she used magic to hide from them. We never knew... I would have told you, but I feared for your safety. I feared you would be put in a position where you would have to start a witch-hunt for your own sister, once the knowledge that she'd been seen in Camelot grew common. After we lost Uther so tragically, so unexpectedly, I couldn't bear the thought of putting the extra strain on your heart. A broken king is not what Camelot needs." He reached out his hand, touching Arthur's arm gently. "Camelot needs its king to stay strong."

Merlin rolled his eyes. He didn't even have to _look_ at his master to know he was already falling for the pathetic excuse hook, line, and sinker. Agravaine had sworn by Ygraine; Arthur would never doubt a statement protected by _that_.

"I'm sorry to have doubted you," said Arthur at last. "I should have known you had Camelot's best interests at heart, as you always have."

"Now, please, tell me, who told your manservant about this sorceress?"

"You'll have to ask him yourself." He looked to him. "Merlin?"

"A friend," he mumbled.

"The name of this friend?"

"William," Merlin lied, using his dead friend's name so as not to incriminate Gilli. After all, he highly doubted Arthur remembered the name of the boy from Ealdor who had died saving him then claimed to be a sorcerer to protect Merlin.

"And how did he come into this information?"

Merlin said nothing.

"Please rest assured, I'm only trying to figure out the best way to avoid panic," Agravaine said silkily. "If news traveled that one powerful sorceress was being kept by another, that a magical war could be on the horizon for all anybody knows... You know stories get wilder with each telling. Probably none of it is true to begin with. But we must be on the side of caution."

"All Will told me," Merlin managed, surprised at how painful speaking of William still proved to be, even in a bluff, "was that he heard some traveler telling his mother all about it. He thought it was curious, and when he came to see me, he mentioned it."

"Yet you thought it important enough to bring to the king?"

"Yes, I did."

"Well, Sire, I hope you are not going to send knights to rescue someone who might be your enemy as readily as Morgana herself."

Merlin had to interject. "But saving her might bend her loyalties. Perhaps change relations between Camelot and those with magic..."

"And why would we _want_ it changed?" Agravaine inquired coolly, arching an eyebrow.

All as well. It was no good planning on rescuing her if Agravaine knew about it and was just going to tell Morgana everything.

Still, there had to be _some_ way to get Arthur to agree and not let his uncle know.

But the answer was slippery, as oily and smooth as Agravaine's sugary tone, and Merlin couldn't find it, let alone hold onto it and put it into action.

No, the warlock would have to do this himself. And _alone_.

AS SOON AS he could slip away again, Agravaine saddled his horse, pressed a silver coin into the hand of a slow-minded stable-boy on duty who could be counted on to keep quiet, provided he was paid and threatened enough by turn. Then he headed out for the forest; for Morgana's hovel. It wasn't in their plans for the news of the sorceress to reach _Arthur's_ ears. Much less for him to consider, however briefly, coming to rescue her. There would be another, more opportune, time to kill Arthur. For now, they just needed to rid themselves of Emrys. Morgana's own protection was at stake. Once she was safe from her supposed 'doom', she could go back to focusing on gaining the throne that was rightfully hers. And, then, best of all, Agravaine would no longer have to pretend. He'd never have to leave her side again to run to Arthur, for Arthur would be no more, and his beautiful Morgana would have a ring of gold -a crown set with diamonds and rubies and countless other precious stones- round her fair white brow.

Tethering the horse, once he reached his destination, Agravaine dismounted and hurried inside, not bothering to knock.

It was the twilit hour, somewhere between dark and light out. The hovel was not yet fully black inside. But Morgana was paranoid and immediately grasped a dagger, holding it out protectively.

"It's all right, my lady, it's _me_ ," Agravaine blurted hurriedly, holding up his hands.

She scowled and let out a breath of relief. "I swear, Agravaine, one of these days, if you do not stop scaring me like that..."

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "Listen, something's happened."

"What?"

"Arthur knows about the Lady of the Lake. Well, he knows you're holding a sorceress somewhere within Camelot."

Her eyes narrowed. "How?"

"That meddlesome servant of his," growled Agravaine, wrinkling his nose. "He claims a friend, _William_ , told him."

"William?" Morgana repeated. "That is the name he used? You're _sure_?"

"Yes."

She chuckled. "Merlin's a bad liar. It's lucky for the boy that my dear brother has so poor a memory."

Agravaine smiled hesitantly. "What do you mean?"

"Will, Merlin's so-called informant," laughed Morgana, "has been dead for several years. And he never set one foot in Camelot during his lifetime. William was a secret sorcerer from _Ealdor_. A small village of little consequence. Arthur learned he was a sorcerer only shortly before he died from a serious arrow wound."

"But why would the boy lie?" Agravaine's brow crinkled.

"He's protecting someone," mulled Morgana. "It could be _anyone_. Merlin has a weakness for outcasts. Especially Druids. And you know how _Gaius_ is... He could have been conversing with any sick Druid lurking in an alleyway who knows much of the lake-sorceress and her current predicament. After all, we wasted no time spreading the rumour among them so that it might reach Emrys."

"Worry not," said Agravaine, trying to reassure her. "Merlin will never convince Arthur to rescue our pretty little prisoner. It was not hard to keep his mind-set in the right place. His parents were lost by magic, he will never rank the life of a sorceress over those of his knights."

"Yes," sighed Morgana, fidgeting from side to side as she lowered herself into a chair. "But Merlin has been a thorn in my side too often for comfort. I will not let him ruin my one chance to save myself from Emrys. If he intervenes, I vow, on my sister's soul, and on the power of the Triple Goddess, this will be the _last_ time." She dug her fingernails into the wooden arms of the chair.

"There is nothing he can do to stop us."

"But perhaps there is something _Emrys_ can." Morgana cocked her head and looked at him, smirking slowly. "I think it's time our special guest in the well was a bit more forthcoming with us. Don't _you_?"

"Yes, but she is... _stubborn_..."

"Agravaine, you underestimate how persuasive a trained high priestess like myself can be." Her eyes drifted to the door. "Go. Fetch her and bring her here."

"What, _now_?" He looked stunned.

"Yes, Agravaine. Now."

Agravaine bowed. "Very well."

As he was turning to go, Morgana's lips parted again. "Agravaine?"

"Yes?" Her eyes were suddenly warm, almost with affection, and Agravaine found himself hoping, however foolishly, that she was going to say something kind and sentimental to him.

"Don't bring the dragon this time." Morgana looked down at her lap. "I don't want to frighten the poor creature any more than necessary."


	4. No Matter What

_~Chapter 4: No Matter What~_

FREYA SAT IN a chair by the fire, Morgana standing before her with several cloth-covered glass jars and a worn, hand-sewn, dull black book of spells that Morgause had left her, many pages loosened as if they'd fall out if the feeble volume was held the wrong way. The fire was warm, and the bottom of the well had been bitterly cold that day, but Freya knew better than to take any pleasure from that; she was all too well-aware she was not here for comfort. Morgana meant to torture her. She would stop at nothing to get extra leverage on Emrys. It mattered little to the high priestess that she had someone who was important to him imprisoned; not if there was even the slightest chance he could still be victorious. She let her fear of doom and ultimate failure rule her senses of reason. Just as the late King Uther had let his fear of magic turn to hate. For that, Freya could almost pity her.

"You are going to tell me what I wish to know."

Freya shook her head.

Morgana reached down and grasped her face, forcing her to look at her. "Oh, but you _will_."

"I have nothing to say to you."

She let go of her face. "That will change." Smirking, Morgana took up one of Freya's hands. "I'm going to begin with your fingers." She sighed and turned the hand over in hers, examining the long white fingers as if she were going to paint them in a portrait rather than break or dislocate them as she planned. "You have such pretty hands, my lady."

Freya just clenched her jaw and stared mutely.

"Then, if you haven't been as...shall we say, _forthcoming_...as I wish you to be, I thought we could play a little game." She dropped Freya's hand and went over to the glass jars. "One of these jars contains a Nathair. Another contains a mandrake root. And the third, well, it's empty, completely harmless. You're going to get to choose one."

"I want no part in your twisted game," Freya told her.

"Want it or not, you have it," Morgana said coldly. Then, her tone softening insincerely, she added, "Personally, I'm hoping you pick the Nathair. That's one of my favorites. My little friend can cause the most unimaginable pain. You'll sing like a lark when you sample the delights of that kind of torment."

"No," murmured Freya, her eyes locking with Morgana's momentarily. "No. I'll tell you nothing. I'm not like you; I don't sell my loyalties for guile or pain. Of _any_ kind."

"We'll see about that." Morgana took her hand again. "Let us start with an easy question, shall we? Your name."

"Why do you want to know my name?"

"Well, I need something to call you, don't I? And if you've lost your usefulness to me before Emrys arrives, I'm going to need a name to taunt his last breath with. The sorceress he failed to rescue. The sorceress he was too _weak_ to rescue. The sorceress who was too weak to rescue herself."

Freya didn't flinch, didn't react at all to that nasty little speech, tired eyes staring numbly over Morgana's shoulder.

"What is your name?"

Nothing. Freya was far away. Her body was in the room, in the hovel, awaiting torture, but her mind was remembering a face. A face that peered at her through the bars of a terrible cage. A nice face, framed by curiously large ears and short-cropped black hair. _Don't worry_ , he'd said, _I'm not going to hurt you._ And he hadn't. He'd saved her, and in more ways than one. _Don't worry..._ She played that part over in her head again. Don't worry. Freya could still feel his protection wrapping around her like a cloak. She would always know, at least, what it was to feel loved. She had only one regret...just one...that Aithusa should be in danger, that she should have failed her friend the Dragonlord in protecting one of the beautiful creatures he was human kin to. No, make that two regrets. For there was one more thing. She wished she could see him one last time. She didn't know what would happen if she was killed again -back to Avalon, or back to oblivion, more likely? All she knew was that she had nothing to fear. No pain -physical or emotional- was worth more than the love and loyalty she felt towards Merlin.

Focusing on one of the knuckles on the hand she grasped, Morgana, eyes glowing an orange-gold, uttered, " _Brecan_."

Freya's knuckle shattered. A cry of pain escaped her automatically parted lips, her eyes filling with tears threatening to brim over.

"Your _name_ ," Morgana repeated, this time grasping Freya's middle and ring fingers and twisting them together painfully.

Freya grimaced.

One final pull and both fingers were dislocated.

"FREYA!" blurted the Lady of the Lake, panting, trying to keeping breathing through the pain. "I'm Freya. My name's Freya."

Pleased, Morgana smiled. "Very good. Now, Freya, I want you to tell me who Emrys is. What name you call him by."

_You can break every bone in_ both _my hands, and I still won't tell you that._ Freya swallowed and closed her eyes.

"Time for our game, then." Morgana put the covered jars in front of her, lined up in a row. "Choose."

Freya didn't move. Just kept her eyes closed, remembering, trying to make herself strong: _I promised I'd look after you, and I will._ No matter what _. You really don't realize how special you are, do you?_

_No matter what_ , he'd vowed so softly, in those catacombs, hiding from Halig.

_No matter what..._

_No matter what..._

"No matter what," Freya whispered to herself, hearing her faint voice grow a little stronger.

"What was that?" asked Morgana, brow raised in mild amusement.

"I won't tell you... No matter what."

"We'll see about that. Now open your eyes and choose, before I choose _for_ you."

Freya opened her eyes and lightly raised her injured hand in the direction of the third jar. She hoped it was the empty one. Not doubting that Morgana would pick one if she did not, she had decided to try for her best chance, however slim that might be.

Regardless, _no matter what_ , Morgana would get nothing from her.

Morgana lifted the covering off the glass jar. "The Nathair." She reached in and pulled the black, snaky creature out.

Freya swallowed hard and braced herself, though it was no use. Nothing could have prepared her for the moment when Morgana used her magic to order the Nathair to strike. The creature's sharp fangs sunk into the side her neck, piercing the skin, sending searing pain throughout her entire body. She flung back her head and screamed unwillingly; she screamed as she had not screamed since her days as a cursed Druid, turning into a Bastet every midnight.

Just outside, standing next to the hovel's front door until Morgana called him back to return Freya to the well with the dragon, Agravaine cringed as Freya's continued shrieks of pain reached his ears. He understood that things like this were necessary, but they were also hard to stomach. The poor girl, young and beautiful, a decent sorceress in her own right, if not a very powerful one, forced through unspeakable torment...

"Good God, will it never end?" Agravaine muttered to himself, disturbed.

FREYA WAS NEARLY catatonic when Agravaine had to bear her back to the well in the darkness of night. Morgana claimed to be finished with her, at least for the time being. She leaned, in a largely involuntarily manner, on Agravaine's shoulder as he gripped her arm and more or less _dragged_ her along. He did, however, make a somewhat conscious effort to be a little more gentle than he otherwise would have been, considering what she'd had to endure earlier.

Eyes half-closed, the wounded, drained Lady of the Lake wearily studied Agravaine from under her lashes.

He wasn't enjoying this, she realized.

Why should he even be on Morgana's side? She certainly wasn't particularly nice to him, at any rate. And if he did not wholly approve of her methods, then why help her? Did he believe Uther had wronged her so severely that everything she did was justified? Possibly, to some extent. Only, that couldn't be the answer to _all_ of it... Not by a long shot, it couldn't be.

It couldn't be, not entirely, hatred of his nephew, either.

Yes, Arthur probably reminded him of Uther, but there had to be _some_ -if not a great deal of- Agravaine's sister in the king, too.

If Freya had been less weak from torture, she might have stumbled across the truth sooner. As it was, it came to her why Merlin was loyal to Arthur. In part because they were two sides of a coin, because it was meant to be, but also for a simpler reason. Merlin loved the king; they were friends. He would have done anything for him, just as Freya was willing to do anything -even withstand brutal torture- to protect the warlock who had shown her what it was to feel loved.

The answer was so readily there, just waiting, patiently, so obvious, somehow without being glaring. Agravaine loved Morgana. That was the long and short of it.

Given the circumstances, despite the age difference, and the offhanded way she treated him, rebuffing any advances he might muster up courage enough to make, Freya even suspected he was _in_ love with Morgana.

"Agravaine," she murmured.

He paused momentarily, seeming surprised that she'd bothered using her limited strength to address him.

"Please let me go." Freya tried to make her eyes open a little wider and lean her face in his direction, largely failing. "Then it will just be you and her again."

Agravaine didn't know whether to be angry or not. On the one hand, he was mildly offended that this strange lake-sorceress knew so much after so little time with them, most of which had been spent trapped under a well with only an infant dragon for company. On the other, he understood where she was coming from. Morgana was _obsessed_ with Emrys, and by default anything -or _anyone_ \- who had to do with him. And Freya, the one destined to be his lover, she was not going to let go of easily. She poured all her attention into this girl, into trying to make her betray Emrys. He would have liked to see her rest more.

But setting Freya free would do no good. It would only make Morgana angry. Besides, she wouldn't -even gradually- become any the calmer for it. She was _never_ calm. And she never would be, till she sat on Camelot's throne. And it _wouldn't_ be just him and her, should Freya and Aithusa leave them. She was always plotting, raising new enemies against Camelot. Her mind was never with him. There was always somebody else, even though he'd tried to show her, in so many ways, that he was her one _true_ ally; her one true friend.

Moreover, he could not, in good conscience, let Freya, however pitiful she might seem right then, go. Not knowing that they would lose their chance to get rid of Emrys. Agravaine was not a superstitious man, but he knew Morgana truly believed -and _feared_ \- that Emrys would be her doom. There was something, in her eyes, in her pale expression, when she looked at him after the mere mention of Emrys' name that he could not bear. He would not let his Morgana live in fear. Nor would he risk losing her in death at Emrys' hands.

"Careful," was all he said, finally, when Freya stumbled, steadying her a bit and continuing to drag her in the direction of the well.

"I'm sorry," whispered Freya.

Agravaine furrowed his dark brow. " _What_?"

"I know how it feels." It was true that, unlike Morgana with Agravaine, Merlin had loved her, but that had -back in the days of their first meeting, when she was still cursed- been just as horrid and heart-wrenching; she'd known, whatever she might feel, they couldn't be together. She had known she could not have her warlock then -and possibly _never_ \- as Agravaine knew he could not have his high priestess now.

He pretended not to react to this kindness on her part, but Freya noted, albeit dimly, since she was still incredibly weak beyond description, that he lowered her down very carefully, as if she were made of glass and might break.

Aithusa's snout touched the side of her arm. The little dragon let out a squeak of terror, knowing her friend who had been -what felt like a lifetime ago just then, in the narrow, brick-walled darkness, though it hadn't been all that long, really- the arm in the lake was badly hurt.

"It's all right," Freya said quietly, pulling the dragon into her arms, while, above, Agravaine was closing them in, rolling the stone back into place over the dry well. "I didn't tell her." She let out a sharp, raspy breath before going on. "About the man who called you out of your egg. I didn't tell her... I _lied_..."

All Morgana had learned that night was Freya's own name, followed by a bunch of nonsense about the sorcerer Emrys. One mad story screamed out under duress after another.

Freya'd told her, brokenly, that Emrys was trapped in an oak tree somewhere, last she heard; that Emrys was in an invisible castle, asleep; that Emrys was actually a secret priestly _title_ , passed on by the Druids, and she didn't suppose the current Emrys was really the one Morgana was looking for, since she kept saying he was an old, old man who'd attacked her outside the hovel, and so was likely dead with a younger man newly serving in his place; that he was a cambion, the child of an incubus and a mortal princess from Odin's kingdom...

Basically, under the Nathair's influence, Freya had told her _everything_...

Everything, that is, but the truth: that Emrys was really Merlin, a young man who had been Arthur's manservant for many years.

MERLIN WAS PACKING to go, tossing a few things into an open satchel on the table. He wouldn't need much, he didn't think, just a few supplies. Food and water, of course. A blanket, in case he ended up stuck spending a night outside and it got cold. Little else. If he was successful, he would have rescued the sorceress from Morgana, left her someplace safe -with the Druids, maybe, if they had gotten over their guilt issues concerning her- and come back home to Camelot, not having been too long missed.

Of course, there were dangers involved. Morgana wouldn't let her prisoner go easily (whatever she was keeping the sorceress for must be something terribly important or else she wouldn't be bothering), and if she caught him there would be hell to pay... But it wasn't as if he could just leave her to fend for herself. And with Arthur unwilling to help and that dreadful Agravaine snooping about... Well, here he was, going in circles in his mind again... As if he was, after the hundredth time, going to magically come up with another way. Merlin had already gone over all this in his head, so many times he'd lost count. He _had_ to do this.

Explaining what was so clear and unyielding in his own head to _Gaius_ , on the other hand, was a completely different story...

The anxious physician was watching him pack with a look of nervous disdain. "Merlin, _think_ for a moment."

"I _have_ thought, Gaius," he insisted, closing the satchel and throwing it over his shoulder. "I've thought it over all of yesterday and last night."

"How can you risk so much for a sorceress you don't even know?" Gaius protested, undeterred.

"You didn't know me, when I first came to Camelot," Merlin pointed out, shrugging the shoulder opposite to the one the satchel was slung over. "And you still protected me; you still taught me everything that was good and right, all the while keeping me safe from Uther."

"I was friends with your mother," Gaius said. It was a weak rebuttal, but it was the first thing that came to him. "I knew she had sent you to me in confidence. To have betrayed Hunith... Even before I came to feel truly protective of you..."

"Well, _I_ know Aithusa."

"You haven't seen her since she hatched."

"I am a Dragon _lord_ , Gaius." There was no way he was backing down. "It is my sacred duty."

"And if Morgana sees you sneaking into her hovel?" he snapped, taking a step closer to Merlin, eyebrow raised. "What then?"

"She didn't recognize me the last time."

"You honestly expect," huffed Gaius, "to escape from Morgana's clutches, under the tiring effects of an aging spell with -not just a glass jar containing a creature of black magic, this time- a young sorceress and a dragon in tow? You intend to snatch this girl and Aithusa from under her very nose?"

"I have to try _something_." He shook his head. "However hopeless. I'm sorry. Don't try to stop me, because you can't." Sighing, Merlin gently nudged Gaius aside and stepped around him. "I'll try to be back soon."

He was almost to the door when Gaius said, "And what am I supposed to tell Arthur?"

"Tell him I'm..." Merlin paused. "...Er... Out picking rare herbs for you. Have we used that one yet?"

Gaius folded his arms across his chest and stared at him in a withering fashion. "Yes, Merlin. _Frequently_."

"All right, then think of something else." He opened the door, preparing to go. Over his shoulder, he added, "Oh, but not the tavern. Tell him I'm anywhere _but_ there. And be careful of Agravaine. _He's_ the one I'm worried about piecing together where I'm really going."

"Merlin-"

"Yes?"

"Be careful." Gaius' tone was gentler now.

"Aren't I always?"

"I _mean_ it." The physician swallowed hard, taking in the impatient, eager form of his ward and assistant, the young man who'd come to be like a son to him, an unexpected blessing in his old age, as if he was worried -as he always was, deep down inside- he would never see him again.

"Gaius, I _will_ be, I promise." And with that, perhaps fearful that someone would come their way and see him standing in the corridor with the satchel over his shoulder before he had a chance to make a break for it, he was gone.

This was the problem with loving someone who had a destiny, Gaius thought, looking at the now empty doorway. You were always left watching an empty space, looking out of windows, wondering if fate would bring them back to you or if their luck would have run out.

And, no, even with the passing of years, you never did get quite used to it.


	5. The Vila's Warning

_~Chapter Five: The Vila's Warning~_

EXHAUSTED, AGRAVAINE RUBBED at the back of his eyelids, fighting a yawn.

Morgana stared, thoughtfully, into the fire, plucking at a loose black thread near the collar of her dress. "She is weak, but she is also more clever than I may have given her credit for."

Indeed she was, Agravaine had to agree, knowing somehow that Morgana was speaking of Freya (she spoke -and thought- of very little else these days; when it wasn't their prisoner's name on her tongue, it was that of Emrys), and thinking about how the lake-sorceress had known so much regarding his feelings for Uther's illegitimate daughter. Whether it was that she had the gift of a seer, like his Morgana, or else that she was naturally observant, he couldn't figure.

"The Nathair was merciless to her," Morgana went on. "I have no doubts under a regimen of such pain she will tell us what we wish to know. If she hasn't already." She sighed and slumped just a little in her chair. "And there lies the problem. She has told me so many stories about Emrys, sung like a bird. So many, as it happens, that I don't know if any of them are the truth, or if Emrys' true identity remains shrouded in a tale she has yet to feel compelled to share with me. They are all absurd, of course. But, alas, equally so. More or less, anyway."

"So what is your _plan_ , Morgana?" Agravaine wanted to know. "If you torture her any further, you're likely to kill her."

"Aw." She cocked her head at him, twisting her neck so that she was gazing, her mouth twitching with mock concern. "Don't tell me you've grown fond of our guest."

"Of course not," he assured her. "But... There is something... _uncanny_...about the maiden."

Morgana stretched her arms. "Uncanny. Yes, you may be onto something with that, Agravaine."

"How so?"

She smirked. "While I can do nothing with the information she's fed me about Emrys, what she's told me about herself is fair game. The spoils of a war captive, if you will."

"And you know everything she answered in regards to herself to be the truth?"

"Freya had no reason to protect herself. It would appear our guest has a very lacking sense of self-preservation. She cares only for Emrys."

_Perhaps we've found a lady, God forbid, more obsessed with Emrys even than you are._ Agravaine bit lightly onto his own tongue, holding back the words he knew would be met only with anger and denial.

"I have reason to believe, peddling little guardian sorceress though she is, Freya has the gift of sight." Morgana rose from the chair, her shadow spreading thinly across the hovel floor. "She can scry."

"So can you, my lady."

"Yes, but Emrys has no cause to use magic to hide himself from _her_ eyes. She may be our best chance of discovering if he's already on his way."

"It matters not." Agravaine shrugged, a mite bored. "Whenever he comes, whenever he finally arrives, we'll be more than ready for him."

"I want to know." Morgana's cheeks flushed and she ground her teeth. "I want to prepare myself for the sight of him."

"But _will_ she scry for you?"

Snorting, she snapped, "She will have no _choice_."

"She could always lie about what she sees."

" _Lie_ ," Morgana echoed, chuckling bitterly. "About magic. To a high priestess of the Old Religion? Surely she knows better than to try anything like that."

"Shall I go and fetch her from the well, then?" asked Agravaine.

"Yes," she said. "You may leave the dragon again, as before, but make certain the creature has something to eat."

And so Freya was once again brought before her. What a pitiful state she was in! Some of her fingers could not even be lifted voluntarily, even when she tried her hardest and grimaced through the pain and the numbness both. Her eyes were glazed, rimmed with reds, blacks, and blues.

At first, she refused to scry altogether, in her tired state even revealing something she probably ought not to of. Namely, that she had tried to locate 'Emrys' through scrying _before_ , and usually failed. This only made Morgana all the more adamant that Freya should do as they asked. In the end, Freya 'gave in', but only because a plan had come to her; not a very _good_ one, perhaps, but a plan all the same. As the Lady of the Lake, she was a spirit of the water herself now, and if she could contact _another_ water guardian of some sort, she thought she might be able to send out a warning to Merlin, urging him not to come, informing him of the trap Morgana had cunningly set up.

They fetched her a -partially tarnished- silver basin and filled it with water halfway. And Freya gazed down into it, concentrating with all her might.

"What do you see?" Morgana demanded, after nearly ten minutes had gone by and not a word from Freya, only mute staring.

Trying to sound as if she were in a trance, Freya murmured, "I see nothing but the waves on the lake of Avalon." In her mind, she urged any water spirits who might hear her cry to pass on her message.

"You're not trying," Morgana snapped.

"I _am_ , high priestess," she whispered, still trying to sound distanced from herself, as if just waking. "Emrys is hidden from me."

"Locked safely in an oak tree, I assume?" said Morgana sarcastically.

"My lady, this is fruitless," Agravaine interjected. "She either can see nothing of Emrys, or she isn't going to tell us."

"There is nothing to tell." Freya let her own voice come through clearly now, weak though it was from everything she'd been through. "I can remember nothing I saw. And all you can do is kill me. I suppose I can die happy, knowing you'll never hurt _him_. That's what you should tell Emrys if he comes and I'm no longer here." _But hopefully he won't be here, either. Hopefully my message got through..._

"Oh, don't worry about that. You're not going to die." Morgana grabbed Freya's arm and pulled her up from the stool they'd allowed her to sit on in case scrying made her feel faint -lest she should fall over, completely unconscious, before telling them anything useful- kicking over the basin of water, leaving a dark puddle on the hovel floor. "After all the trouble you've given me, I am _not_ going to make it that easy for you." She turned to Agravaine. "Put her back. We're done for the day."

ON THE WAY to Morgana's hovel, Merlin stopped at a stream. He didn't intend to stay long, only to scoop up a quick drink of water, not wanting Aithusa and the sorceress she'd evidently befriended to have to endure a moment longer in captivity than was strictly necessary.

To his great surprise, however, a bubble of water magically formed and lifted itself up to his eye-level. A woman's face looked out at him from the bubble, and for one breathless, hopeful second, Merlin thought it was Freya. Then he realized who she must be. Only one of the Vilia. This was just a stream, and Freya was in the lake of Avalon, many miles in the opposite direction.

Lancelot had explained about the Vilia, after they'd healed him, though he hadn't needed to, as Merlin had dreamed the whole thing in his Dorocha's touch-induced vision. _Lancelot_. It still hurt, remembering him. Almost as much as Freya. The longing was the worst part. He could deal with knowing Lancelot was gone and was likely never coming back from the spirit world that had taken him to heal the tear in the veil, but realizing -after seeing her that once in a puddle- that Freya might -just _might_ \- come back someday, and waiting... Except she never did. It was in vain. Yes, that was the most painful part. And yet, it was strangely comforting, at the same time, knowing she was still around. Merlin often secretly prayed to the gods that they would let Freya return to him, in any form, haunting him even... Being unable to find her, always keeping an eye out, secretly, for a glimmer of a well-loved face, at the sight of the smallest drop of water _anywhere_ , and seeing that she was not there... Her total absence these days was what drove him mad; he just hid it well. No one would have ever guessed how he missed her. Not even Gaius, who knew him better than anyone, who had been his sole comforter and confidant when Freya died. Certainly not Arthur, so unaware, never knowing that perhaps the deepest, most grievous sin he had ever committed towards his manservant was one he had long forgiven him for, even as he still suffered from the consequences of it.

That was the greatest bother in feeling for someone as you felt for no one else when they were never there. You always had to contend yourself -find ways, even, to _satisfy_ yourself- with shadows, ghosts, and memories alone.

"Hello, Merlin," said the Vilia softly, her voice as light as a summer's dewy mist.

"Hello." He shook his head, a little confused. "I don't understand... Why didn't you return to the world of spirits when the veil was mended?"

"Some of us are always here," she explained, smiling sweetly. "Streams in this world need as much protection as those in the spirit world. Besides, you cannot seal up _water_. It can move around anything; even the boundaries that separate worlds."

Yes, that made sense. "I never thanked you," he felt the need to say, "for healing me."

"My sisters did most of the healing." Her voice was still kind but now had a ring of dismissiveness laced in its tone. "You must listen to me, Merlin. I know what you mean to do, and I must ask you to turn back before it is too late. The Lady of the Lake has -at great peril to herself- risked a message to us, pleading with you not to go to her rescue."

"The Lady of the Lake..." he echoed, dazed with shock. " _Freya_?" _No, it_ can't _be!_

"Yes," murmured the Vila pensively, "that is what they called her when she was a mortal Druid girl."

" _Freya_ is the one Morgana is holding prisoner with Aithusa..." Merlin couldn't believe it. He should have _known_... The similar stories involving being cast out by the Druids... The feeling that he simply could not bear to leave her to Morgana's cruelty... It was all so glaringly obvious!

"The High Priestess has laid a trap for you," the Vilia continued. "The Lady of the Lake she means to use as bait."

"No... _No_. Morgana doesn't know about Freya..." _Or that I'm Emrys..._

"All I know is that she has learned the Lady of the Lake is -or will be- dear to you."

Merlin winced. "Oh, no."

"The Lady of the Lake can look after herself," said the Vila. "You must not-"

"I'll not leave her." He wasn't about to abandon her to Morgana when she was a random sorceress he'd never met, and he certainly wasn't going to turn tail and run knowing she was _Freya_... _His_ Freya... "I'm not going to let her sacrifice herself because she thinks her life isn't worth mine." He cleared his throat, fighting tears. "Not again."

"I must go now." The Vila sighed. "Promise you will do nothing rash."

"I will do what I have to." That was the only promise he could make, for _anything_ he did, feeling as he happened to at that moment, almost feverish with shock and blind determination, could be considered rash, or else mad.

After the bubble burst and the Vila was gone, Merlin reached into his satchel and unfolded his blanket. Wrapped tight within were two items he had brought among his few necessities just in case -the 'little else'. There were the distinguished robes he wore when he disguised himself as old Dragoon the Sorcerer, and then there was a red cape with a fancy clasp of exactly the kind the knights of Camelot wore (Arthur had given it to him -along with some spare chain mail, which he'd long since returned to the armoury- so that he could pretend to be a knight and lead some of their enemies into a hidden ambush).

Alas, appearing either way would be fatal. A knight of Camelot would be killed on sight, as likely as not. And ' _Dragoon_ '? Who Morgana knew as Emrys? He stood no chance of getting by her, not when the trap she carefully laid was _for_ him... As for appearing as himself, it was...well...it was... _unthinkable_... Morgana would not tolerate _Merlin_ , a mere servant in the castle she had once called home, boy-in-waiting to her much hated half-brother the king, always sticking his nose into her business and thwarting her plans, coming within a yard of her hovel uninvited.

Still, it _was_ Dragoon (or Emrys) who had managed to successfully take the Fomorroh, whatever the cost and strain had been...

Considering this, Merlin took a deep breath, regained his wavering composure as best he could under the circumstances, and made up his mind. He would go, of course he would, as an old man. Morgana had feared him once, and she would have _far_ more to fear if he found one hair of Freya's head -or so much as one insignificant little scale on Aithusa- harmed.

AGITATED, MORGANA PACED the length of the hovel.

"You need to sleep," Agravaine told her, looking up from a document he was studying on the table.

"I'll sleep when Emrys is no more," she snapped offhandedly, making a sharp turn in her pacing.

Rolling up the document, Agravaine sighed. "My lady, this isn't going to help."

"Agravaine, if you have nothing of importance to say," snipped Morgana, turning to glare at him, "why don't you go back to Arthur for a while?"

"I want to stay with you."

And she wanted, desperately, at that moment, to _hit_ him over the head with something, but he didn't see _her_ doing what she wanted, now did he? "He will grow suspicious."

"I will think of an excuse. You needn't worry so."

"You'd _better_ , Agravaine." Morgana made another turn, still pacing. "I've told you before I don't know what use you'll be to me if Arthur finds out-"

"He _won't_ ," Agravaine assured her.

"Freya is hiding something."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does." Morgana shook her head. "It might be the reason."

"The reason for what?"

"The reason Emrys hasn't come."

"He may well be on his way," Agravaine said. "Patience, Morgana."

"I _have_ been patient, Agravaine." Morgana's eyes were cold, laced with tiredness. "I have waited a long time for what is rightfully mine. I have endured more than any woman should ever have to." She closed her eyes and exhaled. "I have been patient."

"He'll come."

"He should have already come."

"Morgana-"

She let out a shaky breath. "Why isn't he here? Why does he choose to taunt me like this?"

"Not sleeping will solve nothing."

"He would like that," Morgana growled. "For me to be asleep when he arrives. So he can snatch Freya and Aithusa away, just like he snatched the Fomorroh. Just like he always snatches the throne for Arthur. I _know_ he must be helping him, somehow. Whether my dear brother is aware of this magical intervention on his behalf or not. I believe Freya knows more about this than she is willing to say."

"I fear any more excitement," interjected Agravine, "and you may work yourself into a faint."

"I'm not a _child_!" shouted Morgana, turning on him savagely, taking a few angry steps towards him. "You do not order _me_. _You_ do not tell _me_ what to do!"

He blinked at her mildly. "I am only thinking of your health."

Calmer, Morgana leaned her arms on the table. "The problem with Freya is that she has pride. A lot of it. The longer she is able to withstand whatever torture we put her under, the stronger it grows."

Agravaine didn't personally think Freya had looked particularly prideful when last he saw her, the woman he'd seen hunched in the corner of the dried out well had been about as full of pride as a rag doll or a cat locked in a cage, but he didn't feel the need to correct Morgana in this. She was a perceptive person, and as such tended to see what he often failed to. There was much guile and darkness in _Arthur_ , for example, that he might never have seen properly without her guidance.

"She needs taking down a peg or two."

"How so?"

"Gather up a large group of your men," Morgana ordered.

"Certainly, my lady." Agravaine nodded. "But, if you don't mind my asking, for what purpose?"

"Our little sorceress in the well needs to feel the sting of humiliation," she explained. "Take her out in front of the men. Strip her of her garments and beat her with them watching. Nothing too bad -I don't want her dead just now, or even hurt much more than she already is- only enough to be humiliating to a young woman. Don't let them touch her, don't even let them too near her; just have them there, a little ways off, but close enough to see what's happening and for her to know they're present."

"Surely-" began Agravaine.

"Rest assured, this gives me no pleasure," said Morgana suddenly, eyes downcast. She despised Freya, yet the thought of her being humiliated in the way she must be, evidently, so that she might break, was not one that filled the high priestess' heart with even so much as mere _satisfaction_. "In spite of her limited power, under different circumstances she might have been a useful little thing -much like the dragon- and a decent ally. She might have risen to a fair position as a priestess-in-training, in another era, when the old ways were practiced freely and there was no tyrant upon the throne of Camelot." She chewed somberly on her lower lip, thinking of somebody -somebody very dear to her- she had never thought she'd demean by bringing up in front of _Agravaine_ of all people. " _Morgause._ Morgause would have encouraged her gifts, as she encouraged mine, if things were not as they are..."

"I-" He reached out for her, but Morgana stepped away from his touch, brusquely.

"Go. Do as I ordered." She waved him off, refusing to even to look into his face as she walked over to the bed. "I will try to get some sleep, as you requested."

"You're not _alone_ , Morgana," Agravaine said gently. "Even with your sister gone."

"Do not speak of her to me." She shook her head. "We may be allies, but we are not on those terms."

"We may as well be," he said boldly, swallowing hard. "I am more than just your ally; I am your one true _friend_ , Morgana."

Sitting on the bed and tucking her feet under her, Morgana finally looked at him, her expression almost childlike. "Your loyalty is appreciated."

"I wish you would tell me that more often," Agravaine told her. "I know it, I always do, but I like to hear it."

"You will not die from lack of praise, Agravaine." She closed her eyes and rested her head. "Go away. Leave me and gather your men."

"Sleep well."

"Doubtful. I'll not sleep well, nor long. Not until Emrys is gone."

"Emrys is never going to hurt you again." His voice cracked with dry emotion. "I'll never allow it."

FREYA DIDN'T BOTHER asking where they were going, when Agravaine took her out of the well, once again leaving Aithusa behind. She was, however, a little stunned when he led her straight past Morgana's hovel and into a large clearing where, all around the greenery, his men were gathered.

"Kneel," he ordered sharply.

With a light push to the ground for encouragement, Freya complied with his command, finding that she was shaking like a leaf.

Agravaine grimaced. He didn't like this. If it had been a man -or even a boy- he would have had no problem with what he had to do. After all, a captured enemy needed to be shamed, and there was no true wickedness in that, provided that it was for a noble purpose, same as what he was doing to his nephew was no betrayal, since he was going it for _Morgana_... But hitting a _woman_? He _could_ do it, only he wouldn't _like_ to. He understood why there was no pleasure to be had here... Poor Freya, she seemed to have been doomed from the first -being destined for Emrys, and then falling into their hands...

Still, orders were orders. And if he backed out simply because it made him feel a bit squeamish, another man would have to do it. The men they had at their disposal currently were not the so-called chivalrous knights of Camelot; they were brutal, rough, even crude fellows who were hired for their swords and raw strength in battle. They'd hurt Freya worse than he ever would, whatever the orders. They'd probably _enjoy_ it, too.

Time to get it over with; there was nothing to it, really. He was doing all he could. He was a good solider, good ally, and good friend where it mattered most; that was what was truly important.

Freya's knees were beginning to smart, as she knelt there. Whatever it was, she knew it must be something absolutely terrible. _Perhaps Morgana has lost patience with me_ _entirely, whatever she said, and thinks Merlin will come anyway, not knowing she has my execution set for this very hour... Maybe they're going to kill me. This could be when I die again..._

Agravaine bent down and ripped Freya's tattered sleeve from her dress.

Freya felt her lower lip quivering. She willed herself not to weep openly. Not with all these men watching... That would be unseemly for the Lady of the Lake, despite what she had been going through.

The rest of her dress was torn from her body with one more strong pull. Agravaine did allow her to try and cover her chest with her arms and hair, little good though it did.

Tears betrayed her and threatened to spill over and run furiously down her cheeks. She swallowed and clicked her tongue around in her mouth to silence the sobs that begged to be released.

Agravaine removed his glove on one hand and formed a fist. A blow struck her in the face, leaving her with a quickly forming black eye. The second blow, and the third, struck her heavily on the back, causing her to hunch over and clutch like a drowning maiden at her own knees. The world around her whirled madly. Things, figures of armour-clad men, blurred. She closed her eyes and endured the rest of it as silently as she could manage.

Lowered carefully back into the well, she found Aithusa asleep and decided not to wake her. Still undraped, the Lady of the Lake pulled the sleeping dragon into her arms and wept bitterly into the cold gray stone under her cheek.

She didn't sleep herself, although she huddled in the dark and breathed heavily like one in a deep slumber. When she realized, hours later, that light was touching her face -that the stone was rolled away from the opening again- Freya couldn't handle it; she cried and blubbered like an inconsolable infant in need of a lullaby. What _now_? What would they do to her? They'd tortured her, beaten her, taken her clothes and exposed her nakedness and shame to a strange army of thugs, left her with nothing but her resolve to be true to the man she loved... What more? Why couldn't they just end her suffering? Back to Avalon...back to nothing...back to _anything_... She would have taken _anything_ over the blackness, mind games, and uncertainty that would have broken most women in her place.

But, as she turned, slowly, holding the still dozing Aithusa in front of her exposed breasts, and lifted her aching, battered face, to the light, it was not Agravaine she saw -nor Morgana- above her, peering down.

It was an old man with a long white beard.


	6. That Ever Slipping Secret

_~Chapter 6: That Ever Slipping Secret~_

IT WAS HIS eyes, in the end, that convinced her first off that she was not dreaming, and, second, that it really was _him_.

Freya had shrunk from him originally, though he didn't look particularly threatening, holding Aithusa a little tighter. But then she'd thought she saw, dimly, him putting an aged, somewhat gnarled, finger to his lips, urging her to be quiet while he pulled her up. That was when she began to suspect...

He seemed to be signaling that he wasn't going to hurt her, meant no harm; he was there to _help_.

So she'd allowed him to pull her and Aithusa up, and when they'd stood before each other by the side of the well, Freya gazed, incredulous, into his eyes. She _knew_ those eyes... There was only _one_ person in the world whose eyes were like that. One person who looked at Freya like that; with automatic love and concern, like she mattered. The aging spell -the wrinkles and long white hair- that fooled Arthur and Morgana both was no mask to the Lady of the Lake, for, in his absence, she had thought about those eyes, recalled them, far more often than those who'd seen him so often needed bother to.

Suddenly weak in the knees, Freya nearly sank to the ground. "It's you," she kept murmuring in a faint whimper. _He shouldn't have come...I tried to warn him, to tell him...but it's really_ him _...and he's here..._

His arms, not quite so strong as when they were young but strong enough still to bear her weight, caught her, holding her protectively as he had once before, beside the lake of Avalon.

"Shh... It's all right." His voice was coarse and croaked a bit, but it was still the one she knew and had longed to hear again. "You're safe now."

"It's a trap..." Freya blurted, tears welling up in her eyes. "I tried to get a message to you."

"I know." Old Merlin shook his head, looking down at the pale, unclothed young woman, and the little white dragon on her chest, in his arms. Surely she must have known he'd come anyway; that he would have done anything for her.

"Where is she?" Freya wanted to know. If Morgana hadn't realized he was there yet, she was certain to soon enough.

"Inside, I think." He gestured at the hovel with his head.

An involuntarily sigh escaped her.

Old Merlin took in the black eye on Freya's face. This clearly was not her only injury, nor even her worst, but it was the most readily visible. His finger traced the bruise gently.

Voice shaking, he asked, in a low, dangerously angry tone, "Who did this to you?"

"Agravaine," she squeaked out.

I'll _kill_ him, thought Merlin furiously. How _dared_ he? How dared he stand in Arthur's court, all suave and silk-voiced and 'blameless', then go off and do something like _this_...? And to a young woman, at that, a girl who'd never done him any harm! It was bad enough that Agravaine was a traitor to Arthur, loyal only to Morgana, but Merlin was almost _used_ to that, used to treading carefully around his master's uncle's two-faced ways, being the only one who saw past his pathetic family orientated facade and through his shabby lies. _This_ , though, was something else entirely.

"I've missed you." Freya reached up and touched the side of his wrinkled face with her hand, her other arm still holding onto Aithusa.

As she brought her hand back down again, Merlin realized how badly damaged it, too, was. Bruises galore, dislocated fingers, and at least one knuckle that appeared to be broken so thoroughly that it was clearly done either by magic or a _mallet_...

"It's _over_ , Freya." Old Merlin helped her to her feet as best he could, letting her lean on his arm. "It's over. They'll never hurt you again."

"You shouldn't have come," she protested softly. "It's my own fault; I should have never let them take me... I should have stayed where I was... I just wanted to see you again, and I got careless... It's my fault."

"No," he growled hoarsely. "It is _not_ your fault. Don't you _ever_ think that." Making certain her quivering knees weren't giving way again, he slipped his arm protectively around her. "Come on, let me take you home." He had a horse tethered to a hawthorn tree in the nearby forest only a few yards away from Morgana's hovel.

"Not so fast, old man." Agravaine appeared behind them, along with three of his men, swords drawn. "There is a pressing matter we have to deal with first."

Old Merlin let go of Freya, letting her sink into a soft, grassy spot on the ground, then turned to face Agravaine. "Indeed there is," he rasped out hoarsely. "Did you do this to her?"

"Emrys, see reason-" He tried to force a diplomatic smile, except it looked far more like a wince.

"Because, she says you did."

"Yes, I admit, I did," Agravaine confessed. "But not because I wanted to. You began this war between us yourself, Emrys, when you harmed Morgana, leaving her for dead outside that very hovel." He pointed in the direction of Morgana's hovel emphatically. "You cannot preach the practice of gentleness towards a woman to _me_. There was very nearly blood on your hands, too."

"I did nothing like _this_ ," hissed old Merlin, swallowing back tears as he gestured over his aching shoulder at Freya's shivering, battered form. "What harm had she ever done you, Agravaine?" _What harm had_ Arthur _, even?_

"It was purely politics."

"This has nothing to do with politics," snapped old Merlin. "What...on _earth_...made you think you could put so much as one hand on her and then just walk away?"

"Old man, this is a misunderstanding on all our parts, I believe." Agravaine took a step towards him. "You're a creature of magic, and so is my lady Morgana, I think surely we can come to some kind of... _arrangement_...here. There is no need for further fighting."

"Oh, there is great need." Merlin was not going to let him get away with what he had done. Not to Arthur, and not -not in so much as a thousand years- to _Freya_.

Agravaine 'rested' his hand on a bulge under his cape, near his belt, still coming closer to Emrys.

It was Freya, utterly terrified, who realized first what was happening. She saw Agravaine draw the dagger and raise his hand, quick as lightning, ready to stab the old sorcerer right in the heart, ensuring that he would never become Morgana's doom.

Her voice burst forth from her throat and past her lips without thought. "Merlin, watch out!"

The warning came in time, old Merlin being able to use his magic, eyes flashing gold, to knock the dagger from Agravaine's grasp, and -at the same moment- take out two of the three armed men (the other ran away in cowardly fear when he saw what happened to his companions and was never heard from again); but, alas, this success did not change the horrible mistake Freya had just unwittingly made.

" _Merlin_?" echoed Agravaine in disbelief. There was only _one_ Merlin that _he_ knew of...

Aithusa woke suddenly and let out a frightened shrieking noise; Freya, horrified at what she had just done, tried somewhat vainly to quiet her. After all she had done, after all she had endured, all the pain and humiliation and suffering, to keep Merlin's secret... To have let it slip that way was almost more than her broken -and somehow still _breaking_ \- heart could stand.

Agravaine stared at the old man's face. "Yes... _Yes_! I see it now... There _is_ something of you, in there..." He took a step back, chuckling in amazement. "Merlin! Arthur's manservant! _You're_ Emrys, and you've been at court this whole time..."

"And you've been here," he said coldly. "Beating the living daylights out of an innocent sorceress."

"I am impressed," Agravaine continued, undeterred.

"Well, _I'm_ certainly not."

"Just think of _Arthur_! Having a _sorcerer_ with him, right beside him, all this time!" Agravaine laughed. "How you've managed to deceive him... You see? We're not so different after all."

"No," croaked the old man. "There is nothing between us."

"You really shouldn't blame _me_ for your troubles, Merlin," Agravaine felt the need to say. "If you'd looked after Arthur better, you would have warned him about me by now. And, if you cared as much about Freya as you claim to, you would have gotten here long before anything bad happened to her."

That was when he lost it. Afterward, Merlin couldn't remember much about it. He was as scared stiff as anyone by what happened next, for not in many, many years had Merlin felt that out of control of his powers. He wished, years later, that he had simply raised his hands and calmly used his magic to kill Agravaine; it would have been far more dignified than what he actually did.

A scream erupted from his old mouth and magically knocked Agravaine to the ground the way Merlin had seen Mordred the young Druid boy kill Camelot's guards when they tried to capture him.

In spite of herself, inside the hovel, Morgana had been asleep. Agravaine had been right; she'd worked herself into a near faint and passed out from her anxiety, sleeping soundly, if a little fitfully. She had slept, even, through Emrys' arrival, as she'd feared she might, and through Freya's unfortunate reveal. Emrys' scream, however, filled with angry magic, had aroused her, and she came running out of the hovel to the side of the well as fast as her legs would carry her.

"Morgana..." moaned Agravaine, not yet on the shores of the land of the dead but close enough to see it from where he was sprawled, completely motionless, on the ground.

Never taking the corner of her eye off of Emrys, she knelt at his side. "Agravaine, get up."

"I can't..." He was fading fast. "My lady, there's something I must tell you..." His eyes flickered over to Emrys. It was right on the tip of his tongue: _Emrys is Merlin..._ But, looking up into her pale, unreadable face, knowing this might be the last time he would ever see her, despairing that he could not protect her from her supposed doom as he more or less _swore_ he would, there was something else...something equally pressing...he had to say... Had to ask... Had to _know_...

"Save your breath, Agravaine," Morgana whispered down to him. "I'll deal with Emrys and then your men will attend to you..."

"No." He shook his head. "I'm dying, Morgana."

"You aren't." Morgana almost laughed. Agravaine was _devoted_ to her, he would not just die and leave her like this.

"I've always cared for you..." _I've always loved you..._ Agravaine blinked up at her helplessly. "Have you ever...? Even in the smallest of measurements...? Do you care anything for me, Morgana?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Agravaine." Yet, some part of her, deep down inside, stirred, telling her that maybe she did care, or _could_ have, if she'd only been willing to let herself.

He reached up to touch her face. Of _course_... Yes, that was the answer he expected. Even in death, Agravaine didn't think his dearest Morgana would ever tell him the truth. Forever and into eternity, she would remain his most sorrowful, beautiful, complex mystery. All his life, Agravaine had been plagued by whys. Why had his sister married that horrible King Uther Pendragon? Why was she killed for his sake? Why was his brother Tristan lost to him so long ago as well? But with Morgana he always knew why. He knew he was neither young nor handsome enough to gain Morgana's love, even if she'd been in a better position to give it more freely. And yet he'd stayed infatuated with her, unable to move on from what he believed was right.

It would be a lie to say Agravaine's love was unselfish, for whatever else it was, it never was that. He thought of himself constantly, bemoaned the way she dismissed his haphazard advances. If his love for her, however real, had been quite so pure as he always imagined -claimed in his mind, as if that justified everything- he'd have told her about Emrys being Merlin first and never minded his need to tell her, once again, albeit for the very last time, how he felt.

Morgana flinched at his touch, showing no emotion save for annoyance, yet she felt curiously sad. He mustn't leave her...as everybody else always did, always _had_... Really, he _mustn't_...

He needed to tell her...before it was too late...about Merlin being Emrys... "Morgana, listen to me, Em-"

Before he could finish, however, Morgana noticed Emrys trying to sneak away with Freya while she was seemingly distracted with the injured Agravaine. No! She would not _let_ him! The high priestess had not done all this just for him to take the lake-sorceress and go, entirely unscathed. Agravaine's sacrifice would forever be appreciated; she might even find a way to memorialize his actions someday when she was queen of Camelot sitting upon her rightful throne -she'd make a fallen hero or a saint of him, little though he actually deserved all _that_ \- but now she needed to stop Emrys getting away.

Old Merlin was just hustling Freya and Aithusa into the closest trees as quickly as he could urge them to move (he himself was a great deal slower than usual, thanks to the aging spell, and Freya could only move so fast in her condition) when Morgana turned on him, eyes flashing. " _Alinn du; forl_ _æte ðu nu!_ "

They were all flung backwards. Aithusa let out a cry, more of stunned pain than fear, but the sound struck Morgana's heart, which Freya and Emrys' groans as they hit the ground did not. She could not express, especially right then, how much she hated them both. All of this was their fault. If Emrys had not been so meddlesome, if Freya had not been so smug and secretive, she would not be out another ally, and she would not have been living all this time in fear of her impending doom.

Agravaine was still trying desperately to tell her the truth, but his lips moved soundlessly now.

As for Morgana, since she was gloating over Freya and Emrys, who had not yet managed to stagger back to their feet, she never saw the exact moment the life finally left the ashen face of Arthur's treacherous uncle; the second her most illogically loyal friend crossed over through the veil between worlds and into the land of the dead, never to return to her.

It is curious, though, that he smiled. Perhaps he thought, even though she didn't know the truth, Morgana had successfully defeated Emrys, and so he had not failed her. Or maybe the Death Crone just had a kindly way of taking him that let him have the peace of mind a life of loving people who were either snatched away from him or else never returned his affections hadn't allowed. More likely, it was only the sweet deep sleep of death in itself that brought relief worth smiling about.

Old Merlin rose halfway, arching his aching, aged body protectively in front of Freya, so that nothing else Morgana might think to magically fire off at them would so much as graze her -she'd been hurt enough- and concentrated with all his might. Eyes glowing, he flung the high priestess aside non-verbally. Merlin needed no spell, no words, when it came to something like this; when he felt _this_ strongly, now just barely in control again, about what he must do.

One hand up, golden eyes, and Morgana was lying there unconscious beside Agravaine's corpse.

Freya let out a heaving gasp. Aithusa looked puzzled, like she was trying to decide whether to stick with Freya and the Dragonlord, who was suddenly old and hairy for some reason, and going curiously over to the high priestess to see if she was all right or not. In the end, she seemed to pick Freya. Morgana hadn't been very nice to them, after all. And the old man was looking for something; the little dragon wanted to help him.

Actually, all Merlin was doing was slipping quietly into the hovel and taking one of Morgana's black dresses for Freya. She needed to wear _something_ ; the day was cool, and she'd be sure to catch her death soon if she continued on naked.

"Poor Freya," he croaked, helping her into the dress. "I'm always trying to smuggle you out of someplace in Morgana's clothes."

She smiled at that. He was so good to her...

She's badly hurt, Aithusa noticed; there were bruises on her face.

Cooing, the young dragon breathed on her.

Although not completely healed, Freya felt much better. At least, she found she could stand up straight again without support. It would be easier to get to Merlin's horse and away from this horrible place in her new, mostly healed state.

THERE HAD NEVER been a more beautiful, brilliantly blue sky than the one overhead that afternoon. A few fluffy clouds scattered here and there, offering just the right amount of green-tinted shade in the soft, leafy canopy of the forest.

It was under this sky that the young warlock, still under the guise of his aging spell, and the Lady of the Lake -a little white dragon wrapped round her arm and clinging to her shoulder- holding onto his waist, head rested, exhausted, on the back of his long white hair, traveled on horseback.

Freya had never felt so much sweet relief in all her life; it was like a dream. The air was calm, and she and Aithusa were free, safe and sound with the one person she trusted more than anyone else in the world.

After a bit, they came to a stream -the same one, in fact, that the Vila had spoken to Merlin at- and dismounted.

Old Merlin helped Freya down and gently placed the red knights' cape over her shoulder. It was warm enough out now, but he'd noticed, all this while, she'd still been shaking quite a bit.

"Here." He leaned forward and fastened the leather strap into the fancy clasp for her.

Freya felt herself blush. Even old with bad, yellowed teeth and a rough, coarse voice replacing the soft, almost melodious, young one she remembered so well, he was still capable of making her fall in love with him.

"Thank you." Gazing into his eyes, she leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth, ignoring the beard that tickled her.

The horse let out a whinny and the dragon cried shrilly, sticking her head out from under the cape. Someone was coming.

The lovers broke apart and turned to see what was afoot.

Old Merlin blanched. It was the knights of Camelot. They were within sight of him, though not yet range. They'd probably seen Freya, but given that she wore one of their capes, they probably thought she was a knight in the distance (they were too far off to see Aithusa's head, or that their 'knight' they were rushing out to join and fight alongside had been _kissing_ the old sorcerer they planned on pursuing in Arthur's name).

I can deal with the knights, Merlin thought, I have before... But what about Freya? What if they capture her for being a sorceress and take her back to Camelot as a prisoner?

He didn't think Arthur would kill her, not for simply having magic, since she hadn't used it against Camelot (he wasn't like his father, when it came to that), but he didn't think, all the same, he would be particularly kind to her either. After all this, he would not risk them seeing her. He could always convince them that the knight they saw was naught but an enchantment, a vision of sorts; him using magic to mess with them. As for Freya, he had to hide her, and Aithusa, and quickly.

Thrusting the blanket in her arms so she could use it to conceal Aithusa if she came out all the way from under the cloak, old Merlin lifted Freya and put her in a circle of bushes a far shot off from where he expected to meet the knights.

"I'll come back for you," he promised. "Wait here."

"Merlin-" she began to protest.

"Freya, you _know_ I _will_ come back for you, don't you?"

She nodded. _Always._ He never failed her.

He reached out and, quick as water slipping through open fingers, ran his hand along her hair. Then he was gone, going out to face Arthur's knights.

It got a bit colder out, and Freya began to feel anxious after what felt like well over two hours went by and Merlin did not return.

She tried to convince herself that she was wrong. It hadn't been _that_ long, surely. It only felt like so long a time because she was worried about him. That was all it was...

But, no, the sun had definitely moved; something wasn't right. Where _was_ he?

Shivering, Freya pulled the cloak tighter around herself and wrapped Aithusa -who was sleeping again- in the blanket, holding the dragon almost as she would a _human_ baby in all its warm swaddlings.

That was when she heard it at last: a sure as anything stirring close-by. No voices, but certainly the unmistakable rustle of the bushes. Merlin was coming back. It had taken him a little longer, it would appear, to deal with the knights and get away from them than he'd expected, but he was here now, likely safe enough, and they would soon be together again; nothing else mattered.

Alas, when something stuck out from the shrubs that engulfed her so protectively, hiding her all this while from the knights of Camelot, Freya nearly jumped out of her skin.

For it was not Merlin's old hand, reaching out for her, as she'd expected.

It was a young, slender hand, and it was holding out a sword, pointed straight at her.


	7. Tristan and Isolde

_~Chapter Seven: Tristan and Isolde~_

MORGANA WOKE, SLOWLY opening her eyes. There was a trickle of dark blood that ran from one of her temples and halfway down her cheek, but it was long dried out, well clotted.

Beside her, was Agravaine.

No, not Agravaine, not _quite_. Not as she remembered him, anyway. This was a lifeless, colourless shell of the man who'd once lived, breathed, and followed her like a loyal dog; who would have done anything for her.

His lips curled upwards in death, and his expression was surprisingly sweet.

Rising to her feet, the high priestess put the index and middle finger on her right hand to her temple and exhaled heavily.

When the world around her felt steady enough, she looked around more intently. Hazily, from the distance, she got the sense that Agravaine's men were coming -reinforcements who'd arrived a little too late. Agravaine had been a fool to surround Emrys with only the three. The slippery old sorcerer clearly needed the better half of an army to seal him in place.

Their leader, Agravaine's former second in command, dismounted when he reached her and saw the state she was in. "Lady Morgana!"

"Emrys was here," she said dismally, eyes hollow. "He took the Lady of the Lake and the dragon. Agravaine is dead."

"It will be all right." The leader nodded to her, attempting to be consoling. "Emrys and Arthur both will be destroyed yet."

Morgana got choked up, staring in a strong, yet pitiful manner into the faces of the men who were all looking at her sadly. Some of them were inwardly mourning Agravaine, possibly, but most of them were merely indifferent, collecting at best, save perhaps those who thought Morgana a fair young thing, though not one they could prey on -Agravaine had made it perfectly clear, even to the least of them, that you never, ever laid a finger on a _high priestess_ , especially one as powerful as the Lady Morgana- and were sorry that she had lost her ally in the fight against King Arthur.

"There is no time to mourn. We must return my dear brother's beloved uncle to Camelot. Let his hatred burn against Emrys, stronger even than ours." Morgana lifted her chin high as she spoke.

She would not cry for real in front of these men. If they saw any tears later that day in Morgana's eyes, they were fake, pretty things to ensure she was a strong yet ill-used cause they must keep fighting for, however lacking their individual senses of justice might be. She needed only their mob mentality, urging them on to serve her, savagely and without reason -without Arthur's sweet words or pathetic ideals swaying so much as one of them to turn traitor from her side. She thought she might, in spite of herself, cry for him later, but this would be a private affair. If, that is, the tears came at all. A heart as hard as hers, as wounded and callous did not hold wet tears in for very long; they, too, hardened after only a short while. And, by the time she was done dumping Agravaine's body in Camelot for Arthur to find, and taking command of the army that was hers alone now, that while might very well be over, leaving her eyes as dry as the well she'd kept Freya imprisoned in.

FREYA GULPED AND held the blanket-wrapped Aithusa a little tighter to her chest.

"Oh, Tristan, she's only a girl." A woman's face appeared. She was very beautiful, with blue eyes and blonde hair plaited into a side-braid; her clothes were those of a man, tan-coloured breeches and a black shirt with clasped sleeves that looked like two small leather belts over each arm.

A man appeared next. He was a mite older than the woman, tired, slightly worn-looking in the face, also blonde and fair of skin. He was dressed in longer breeches than the woman, as well as a brown long-coat that might have been fine enough for a lord or duke once but appeared to have fallen on hard times.

It was the woman who'd been holding the sword out, pointed at Freya, but the man had one unsheathed and ready to use on her, too, had she turned out to be a more threatening figure, lurking in those bushes.

"She seems to have no supplies," the woman said, using the hilt of her sword and the back of one hand to move through the bushes, searching for any belongings or weapons the girl they'd stumbled across might be hiding. "No horses or ponies; no luggage, no food. Nothing."

"What's that in her arms?"

The lie came effortlessly from Freya's dry, nervous lips. "A baby." Then again, maybe it wasn't a _complete_ lie. She hadn't, after all, said what _kind_ of baby it was; she'd never claimed it was a _human_ infant.

The man, Tristan, studied her cape with suspicious eyes. "That's the cape of a knight of Camelot. I'd know it anywhere. Where did _you_ get it?"

Freya tried to remember one of the names of the knights of Camelot. Merlin had mentioned some of them, in passing, while talking to her, trying to calm her and assure her things were better and she was safe again, while they'd been riding earlier, but mostly their names hadn't stuck.

She blurted the first one that came into her mind. "Sir Gwaine."

"Sir _Gwaine_ ," Tristan repeated.

"A knight was _here_?" the woman asked, next. "In the forest?"

"N-no," Freya managed, not entirely truthfully, knowing perfectly well there had been knights fairly close by recently enough. "In a tavern, some time ago. My... _husband_... He won it from him in a card game."

"Well," said Tristan, more to the woman than to Freya, "it wouldn't surprise me if the knights of Camelot are now drunkards who gamble off their clothing on top of everything else."

"Tristan!" the woman interjected suddenly, coming closer and squatting beside Freya. "Look at her hands."

Tristan crouched down. "Damn." Despite what Aithusa had managed to heal, some of Freya's fingers were still badly, and very visibly, dislocated. "What the hell happened?"

"We were attacked." She trembled and shrunk back slightly, making sure Aithusa's blankets were covering her face. "Me and...the baby... We were on our way to meet up with my husband when... This man...he just _took_ us... He had near an army at his disposal; there was nothing I could do. He locked us up in a dark hole without sunlight for days and days..." Freya swallowed and blinked sadly. "We finally escaped. An old man distracted them. I suspect he was somebody important and they wished to confront him. He turned out to be quite the fighter, even at his age, and I got away on his horse while he was distracted." She sniffled; it was not entirely faked, she was still a little frightened, though less so than she'd been a few moments ago. "I thought I heard my husband's voice, so I rushed forward... I got lost... Then I saw your sword..."

"It's all right," said the woman, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "My name is Isolde." She tilted her head in Tristan's direction. "That's Tristan."

"Are you bandits?" Freya asked quietly.

"Smugglers," said Tristan. "We pay our way. We've never been in the practice of petty robbery."

"Isn't that illegal? Evading the king's taxes like that."

Isolde lifted her bare arms into a shrug. "Only if we get caught."

" _Caught_. Tristan and Isolde," snorted Tristan. "I don't think so."

"Come with us," Isolde said kindly, helping Freya to her feet by grasping her elbows so as not to jolt the 'baby' in her arms too much.

Freya shook her head. "I can just wait here for my husband." If only she could stall long enough for Merlin to come and find her...

"No," Tristan decided, sheathing his sword. "It's not safe. There are vagabonds in these woods. We ourselves are unwise to leave the cargo unattended for so long."

Isolde noticed how Freya blanched. "Don't worry. We'll take you to him." She turned to Tristan. "Won't we, Tristan?"

"Isolde, it will be a massive detour."

She cocked her head and clicked her tongue, a mite impatiently. "She needs _help_ , Tristan. We can't leave her fingers in that state, let alone abandon her here."

He nodded grimly. Isolde was right, as usual. "All right."

"Come." Isolde slipped her arm around Freya's shaking shoulders and led her out of the bushes to where a fair-sized caravan pulled by two very beautiful yet inconspicuous horses waited.

One of the horses snorted, shook his head up and down, and pawed the ground with his left hoof.

Here and there, a few men, who obviously worked for Tristan, ducked in and out of the trees. Freya suspected that, while _some_ were undoubtedly making themselves useful enough and patrolling the area for trespassers, most were more likely just going off to relieve themselves.

It could have been worse, she realized. Rather than just being merely discovered by a pair of smugglers who -while she didn't completely trust them- claimed to mean her no harm, she might have been accidentally peed on... She could at least be grateful for that.

At any rate, she would have to keep her wits about her. Even with Isolde being so kind -and Tristan, too, overall, despite his gruffness- Freya knew better than to trust people on their pretty words alone. If anything went wrong, she _must_ be ready to defend herself and Aithusa and make an escape. But, really, getting out of a simple caravan _had_ to be a great deal easier than escaping from a deep well, injured or no.

Even if they were as good of heart as they seemed, she'd keep Aithusa hidden. She understood what temptation such a rare creature could be to a pair of smugglers who resented King Arthur's taxes, and she didn't want to put them in that position.

Tristan and another man whose name Freya didn't catch, lifted her up into the back of the caravan; Isolde hung up a makeshift cloth-wall that rolled back like a curtain so Freya and the baby could have at least a small level or privacy.

Alone for the moment, Freya sighed and placed Aithusa's blanket-covered form on a swaying hammock she discovered set up in the space behind her.

The little dragon seemed to like the gentle swaying motion; her snoring grew deeper and more contented almost immediately.

Standing over the hammock, Freya noticed the tip of Aithusa's snout sticking out from under the blanket. The sound of feet echoed behind her, someone having clamored into the back of the caravan and now walking towards the cloth wall... As tenderly and nonchalantly as she could manage, she quickly covered Aithusa's snout so that she could still breathe all right but it was no longer clearly visible.

It was Tristan, and he had something thick, hard, and connected by several dense metal links in his hands that jingled as he approached her.

Freya nearly jumped out of her skin, bad memories coming at her full attack all at once. _Chains..._ He was going to put her in chains! He was going to lock her up, like Halig; imprison her in the darkness, too, maybe, like Morgana had... Well, she wasn't about to let herself be taken again. She'd use anything, even magic, to defend herself here. After all, she was closer to Aithusa, had a better chance of grabbing her and running off with the upper hand than Tristan did...

But why did they even _want_ her? Had they seen the Druid mark on her arm when they'd examined her injured hands?

Except, who would Tristan and Isolde even hand her over to? If they hated Arthur so much as they claimed?

Supposing they meant to take her back to Morgana! She couldn't - _wouldn't_ \- go back in that hole, nothing but bait to lure Merlin into a trap again... She wouldn't!

Backing away, Freya glared threateningly at Tristan, teeth half-bared. _He won't hurt me if I show no fear...if I'm ready for him...ready to fight him off, weak though I might be just now..._

Why were his eyes so...so...well, _lacking_...? There was nothing of Morgana's rage or Halig's boastfulness in the face of this smuggler.

"The iron braces are to help you keep your wrists straight while I set your fingers," Tristan explained, holding them out to her.

Still wary, Freya shook her head, eyes darting, involuntarily, over to Aithusa, who hadn't stirred.

"If I don't fix your fingers now," Tristan explained, somewhat tiredly, "you could potentially lose the use of at least _some_ of them."

Swallowing, Freya stuck out her hands, letting him stick her wrists in the iron cuffs, hoping only that she was not falling for a trick, trusting the wrong person, again.

And yet, she _did_ trust him. There was an innocence in his face. An innocence she'd seen in Merlin's face when he'd first helped her escape from Halig's cage. Tristan was just grumpier about it.

Right away, Tristan began popping her fingers into place.

Freya grimaced from the sudden sharp, shooting pain, but it passed after about a minute, and then her hand felt far better than it had in what seemed like ages. "Thank you." It wasn't easy, but she found she could wiggle one of her fingers in a quick, steady motion without hurting so badly that her eyes filled with water.

"You're welcome," Tristan said, removing the irons. He spoke offhandedly, but there was a distinct tenderness to his tone as well. "I take it that's better, then?"

She nodded with an earnestness, greatly relieved sort of shyness and gazed down at her knuckles. This smuggler and his partner were no villains; they would not betray her trust, if Freya so chose to give it. And it seemed, half-unwittingly, she had.

"So, obviously, staying here is not going to work out," Tristan said, getting straight to business. "Where can your husband usually be found?"

"Camelot," she said, a bit sheepishly.

He rolled his eyes and huffed. "Figures. _Where_ in Camelot, exactly?"

Should she tell him the truth? At any rate, a good enough lie wasn't coming to her head quick enough. It appeared the lady of the lake had wasted whatever little cunning she possessed, what tidbits were left over from Morgana's tiring mind-games, on excuses for her dragon, calling it her baby, and making Merlin her husband instead of just her old lover and current rescuer. Besides, there was no way Tristan could hate Camelot more than he already did. On top of that, he was more likely to be sympathetic to an ill-favored servant more or less stuck in their drudging lot in life than an average man who chose to live under Camelot's rule when he was a freeman and could have found another way.

"He's a castle servant, I believe," said Freya, at last. "I never go there with him. I was only in within the Citadel walls once." _That_ was true. She left out that the aforementioned 'once' had consisted sorely of the catacombs under Camelot.

Tristan cursed under his breath. "Damn," he added, a bit more clearly. _Couldn't just work as a woodsman -or a falconer, maybe- to bring money back to his wife living in the dangerous outside world; no, it just_ had _to be the bloody_ castle _, the bloody heart of the corrupt system where the blasted King Arthur himself lives, didn't it!_

"I'm sorry," Freya blurted, reddening. "Honestly, I appreciate what you've done for me, but I promised Merlin I'd meet him there, in that bush...and I understand, as a smuggler, you can't go to the castle any more than _I_ can..."

"Never mind." Tristan rose and turned to leave the Caravan. "We'll think of something." He gave her a kind but withering smile. "If we don't, we're sure either to be stuck looking after you and your lumpy baby forever, or else have a very angry, lovesick man -one _far_ too close to the king's ear for comfort, however low his standing in the court- on our trail hunting you down. Can't say which option sounds _worse_ , truth be told."

Curling her fingers, enjoying the returned ability, even though it still hurt enough to make her fight more than a slight wince even with the vast improvement, Freya leaned out of the side of the Caravan discreetly, watching as Tristan went outside.

Thinking himself unobserved, he smiled and beckoned Isolde to his side. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the mouth. She giggled lightly, leaned into his touch, whispered something to him, then pulled away. For a few moments, Tristan played with the end of Isolde's braid, but then she had taken so many steps away from him that he could no longer reach it, reminding him that they had work to do. They had to get a move on. Not only did they still have their cargo to deliver, but they had to find Freya's husband and return her and that strangely shaped (even under the blanket this much had been evident) baby to where they belonged.

Unexpectedly, Freya felt a small trace of tears in her eyes. Even though he'd beaten her up, and was now dead at Merlin's hand, she still felt a little -a _very_ little, at this point- sorry for Agravaine. Simply because he knew what it was to have an unfulfilled love story. Tristan and Isolde were lucky to have each other. And the rumour was King Arthur was in love with -and happily courting- the former serving girl of Morgana from back when she was a lady of Camelot. Chances were, rocky moments along the way aside, in the end they'd have each other to keep as well. She -Freya- was in love, too. Also with someone the rest of the world -most of it, anyway, not counting the Druids- considered 'only a servant'. But, even now, with all the bad things -imprisonment and torture and fear- more or less over for the time being, what good could come of it? Regardless if Tristan and Isolde were able to safely reunite them, Merlin had to return to Arthur and Camelot, where he belonged. And surely when he'd said "Come on, let me take you home," he'd meant the lake of Avalon. Freya _had_ no other home... Not anymore.

It was foolish of her, she knew, to suddenly be so uncharacteristically selfish, but... She was going to miss him. That was all. She was going to miss him more than ever.

More, even, than she had _before_.

The feeling would pass, and she would soon be all right. But it never got any easier, missing Merlin. She already missed him. She also hoped the knights hadn't done him any harm, not knowing that behind that crazy old sorcerer facade was hidden one of their truest friends.

What would happen when he made his way back to where he had left her and Aithusa, only to find them both gone?


	8. Another Way

~Chapter 8: Another Way~

ALL RIGHT, WHERE is he? Tristan thought irritably, waiting behind a tree.

The caravan hidden safely some distance away, Tristan had taken a horse halfway back to the place he and Isolde had found Freya; the rest of the way, he'd gone on foot.

If her husband, a supposed castle servant at Camelot who their little refugee called _Merlin_ , was expecting to find his wife here, then here was most likely the first place he'd come to tonight.

This way, Tristan could -as quietly as possible- intercept him and lead him to their makeshift camp set up all around the caravan's current location. It mattered not at all if this Merlin saw the way to get there, or learned their secret trade, for soon as they set him and Freya off the following morning, they'd be safely gone. Off selling their precious cargo.

Just when he was about to think that Freya's husband was not coming -that he had abandoned her or, worse, was lying dead in the forest somewhere- he saw a figure shuffling towards the bush where he waited.

It was obviously a man -a young man, though he dressed in fine red robes better suited to a more distinguished, aged gentleman- and his shadow was even more easily visible than he himself was. He clearly knew very little about keeping his footsteps quiet when the forest was dark; Tristan could hear him perfectly, including all his feeble attempts to step over weaker twigs, as if he thought not making _a lot_ of noise was sufficient to avoid being tracked.

And maybe it was, for the knights of Camelot. If he was used to bamboozling _them_ , well, then, he might be forgiven for playing the foolish klutz.

"Freya?" he whispered urgently into the bush.

Instead of Freya, he met Tristan's sword point.

"Come quietly," Tristan ordered. "I'll take you to your wife."

Merlin gulped and twisted his neck. "Look, you've got the wrong person."

"I don't think so," said Tristan. "Even in the poor lighting, I can tell you match the description. And what would you be doing here, with no supplies, dressed like a bloody court physician, if not looking for your wife who was hiding out here earlier?"

"I don't know what you are talking about." Merlin took a step away from the sword and turned around, facing Tristan properly. "I'm no woman's husband. You're mistaken. You must think I'm somebody else."

"Very well." He sheathed his sword. "I don't have time for this. I'll tell Freya her husband didn't want her back after all and something else must be done about getting rid of her."

_Freya!_ Merlin glared at him. "Where's Freya? What have you done with her?"

" _Protected_ her!" snapped Tristan, frowning automatically at his thanklessness, though he understood it, knowing full well that if the situation was reversed and it was Isolde, he would have been equally defensive and secretly frightened out of his mind, altogether mad with worry. "She wasn't in any fit state when my partner and I discovered her huddled in the bushes with your baby."

_Baby? Husband?_ What _?_ Merlin's head spun. None of that made any sense... But _Freya_...

Somehow it never occurred to him to think, even for a moment, that it was not the same Freya -not _his_ Freya- Tristan had found. No, he knew it was _her_ , and that she would be expecting him. However little of what Tristan said he understood, he understood _that_ much. He understood that Freya needed him and was waiting for him.

And, really, so long as she was all right, wasn't that all that mattered?

"All right." Merlin lifted his hands up in surrender, allowing Tristan the benefit of the doubt. "Then take me to her."

Tristan nodded. "Certainly. Follow me."

Merlin followed through tightly woven paths in the forest, some so narrow he mightn't have ever thought -on his own- to go that way. Later, when he saw the caravan, he would wonder how by the grace of the gods Tristan, Isolde, and the rest of the smugglers had ever gotten it through.

Finally, in a clearing, there was Freya.

With Isolde, a few drowsy-looking men who appeared to be perhaps in their late twenties or else their early thirties, and an older woman with a streak of gray in her rag-bound hair and a faint white scar along one cheek, the Lady of the Lake sat by a roaring fire.

"Freya!" Merlin gasped out, his voice unexpectedly catching in the middle of his throat, coming out croaking and raspy as if he were still in his aging-spell form.

She jumped at the sound of his voice and got up and clamored over towards him as quickly as she possibly could. "Merlin!"

"Thank goodness." He threw his arms around her as soon as she stood before him, holding her close.

"Look, Merlin," she said happily, as he -still with some reluctance- pulled away, holding up a hand. "Tristan fixed my fingers."

"Tristan?"

She gestured over at the man who stood at his side.

"Oh." Foolish of him, perhaps, not to have asked the man's name sooner. Still lightly grasping Freya's waist, he turned his neck and looked at him again. "Thank you."

Tristan shrugged modestly. Well, what would this beaming, rather large-eared serving-boy have _expected_ him to do? Let her fingers become useless, paralyzed for the rest of her life? Not when he could have helped her. There was no reason for him to carry on like someone had handed him the moon, just for helping his loved one. Yet, if it had been Isolde... Ah, yes, Tristan was a bit of a hypocrite in the love department, and he knew it. But, still, no harm acting vaguely indifferent until the boy calmed down from his overwhelming joy at finding his wife safe and sound.

_Aithusa!_ Realizing _she_ should be somewhere about too, Merlin leaned close to Freya's ear. "Where's the dragon?"

"She's safe," she said. Then, more pointedly, "the _baby_ is safe."

All at once, Merlin understood, and struggled against a grin.

Somehow, Freya had managed to persuade the smugglers that the scaly endangered creature last seen in a blanket she'd clutched in her arms, was in fact their infant child.

It was a good ruse, he had to admit, almost as good -and unbelievable- as being a sorcerer in Camelot and keeping it a secret for years on end.

Keeping secrets from others, but rarely each other, all but holding their breaths as they waited for the next time their tragic lives would cross, wondering how long things could continue going on like this... Was this how it would _always_ be? The Lady of the Lake who lived in seclusion in Avalon and the warlock who lived as a manservant for King Arthur. Was this all destiny would ever have in store for the two of them?

"You can spend the remainder of the night with us," Tristan informed them, "but by morning, I hope you understand we expect you to be gone."

"Or _we_ can go." Isolde smiled, coming over and putting a hand on Freya's shoulder. "Either way, I'm afraid we'll have no choice but to part ways."

"I understand," said Freya. "You've done more than enough." Her eyes flickered to Tristan. "You both have. One day, I will find a way of repaying you. I _promise_. Trust me, I always keep my promises when it comes to repaying kindness." She swallowed and glanced away from Tristan and back at Merlin. "You can ask him, if you have any doubt."

Merlin smirked involuntarily, cocking his head at her in an adoring manner. Ah, _Freya_. He hoped she'd never change.

She acted as if he had given her the world, saved her. But sometimes he wondered if, in her own broken way, she had saved _him_ as well. She had given him back the sword in Camelot's hour of need; she had made _him_ feel loved in return for the affection he had been compelled to shower upon her from the first moment he saw her in Halig's cage.

As the Lady of the Lake, she could certainly find a way of repaying these benevolent smugglers as well.

Quite easily, in fact, he would imagine. A rare treasure from Avalon, one day, placed just where they might stumble across it, soon to become the jewel of their valuable stock... Or, perhaps, one of them would accidentally fall, at some perilous angle, into a stream and she would contact a Vila, asking them to rescue and heal the wounded smuggler, cheating death and reuniting the smugglers just as the smugglers had reunited him with Freya just now...

And they could be happy as partners for life.

AGRAVAINE'S BODY OUGHT to of been found by the knights. That was probably how Morgana imagined it. Arthur's knights, discovering that their king's beloved uncle was dead. _Murdered_ , at that! And of course they were meant to tell Arthur of what had happened, and he was to look on his dead uncle's face and wonder... Wonder if sorcery or else mere foul play was to blame. If his mind turned to sorcery, Emrys -or Dragoon, as he knew him- would be a prime suspect, even without any evidence directly pointing to him. Morgana assumed Arthur was like her father when it came to matters like that. Perhaps that once, she thought, it would work in her favor, rather than against it.

Far from vanquishing her, Arthur's hand would turn against a sorcerer who -for no apparent reason the high priestess could discern, as there seemed to be absolutely nothing for the demented old coot to gain from this- was evidently trying to keep Morgana's half brother on the throne.

Instead, however, it was a young woman who discovered the body. She had only gone into edge of the forest to pick some editable herbs for the fancy soup Audrey was meant to be cooking up for Camelot's royals that evening.

She was called Drea, and she was a skittish girl. Always having had a nervous nature, it had not been made any better by the fact that her whole family had died when their village was attacked by the Dorocha. It had only been a little after Samhain... And everyone she loved was gone...mother, father, little sister... All of them lost forever, frozen from one fatal touch by the horrid ghostly creatures that screamed and had no faces.

It still gave her nightmares sometimes.

And while she liked King Arthur quite a lot, Drea also had her moments of regret in taking the offer his court had supplied her in staying in Camelot as a servant, seeing as she had no place else to go, no one -and no home, either- to return to in her village.

Oh, yes, it had been generous, but Audrey was mean. Just yesterday, she'd thrown a wooden spoon at Drea's head. It had hit her on the brow. There was still a little lump there that throbbed and hurt if she concentrated on it.

Nothing would protect her from the cook's wrath if she brought back the wrong herbs. Not even that stuffy, polished servant George who'd sort of stuck up for her once, after Arthur's manservant Merlin had returned and he'd been demoted back to the kitchens, armoury (he said this was his favorite place to work, anyway), and stables. Audrey would beat them _both_ with a wooden spoon. And _that_ , if they were _lucky_!

But how could she be sure which herbs were the right ones? Why didn't the cook ever take into account that many of these either did not grow in the village she had once called home, being native to a specific area, or else were simply not used in cooking there? And many of them looked alike.

If Drea were a little braver, she would have asked Arthur's personal manservant, the one he fancied more than George (even though she could often hear the king yelling at him from several rooms -sometimes _floors_ \- away) about it. True, since he lived in the chambers of the court physician, the herbs he collected mightn't have been the same ones she needed, but he could probably identify them better than she could, whatever kind they were. All the same, she found she was a little shy of him. He seemed strangely informal for a manservant. A little too interested in his surroundings. There was a twinkle in his eye, as if he knew something Arthur, despite the fact that he was a king, did not. And that made Drea nervous. Too nervous to talk to him very much.

_There_! A green patch stood not far away. Herbs? They looked... They _looked_ like they just _might_ be the ones Audrey asked for.

But, wait, what was _that_?

A thick, white thing stuck out from among the greenery.

It was a finger. A man's finger.

Shaking, she walked, on tipped toes, over to the cold corpse.

She found it was a face she knew well. It was Sir Agravaine, uncle to King Arthur. If it was of any use...to run back for the physician... But, of course, it wasn't. Even she, an orphan serving-girl scared more than half out of her wits, could see for herself beyond shadow of doubt that he was dead. And perhaps not as newly dead as one would think. He did not smell, the odor of the rotting dead was not yet upon him like a vile cloud, calling forth the crows, but he was cold to the one finger touch upon a single knuckle Drea managed, willing herself not to faint.

Her voice found her then. The voice that had never been able to stand up to Audrey, or speak to Merlin, nor even properly thank George... The voice that was left little more than a whisper when her whole family was lost to her... Here it was, back again. A piercing scream that came from her throat and up out of her mouth. It was shrill, not unlike the shrieks of the Dorocha.

Once she began screaming, she found she couldn't stop, and had to press her hand to her quivering, yowling mouth in order to shut herself up as she ran, sobbing, from horror not grief, back to Camelot to tell someone -anyone who could get her to the king, who needed to know- that Sir Agravaine was dead.

THE SMUGGLERS WERE all asleep, except for Tristan, who was half-sitting, half-lying under a tree with a dozing Isolde in his arms, and two other men who were on watch duty, taking it in turns to look after the cargo.

Neither Freya nor Merlin thought it likely that Tristan or Isolde was worried about _them_ robbing them blind and then running away. They seemed contented that the only treasure Merlin wanted was his Freya back, and that Freya's newly-set fingers were not really in the best condition to be scooping up their supplies and making off with them in the dead of night. No, it was more to protect their illegal livelihood from roving forest bandits that -if they were coming- had not yet arrived.

Freya sat on the wooden boards that made up the floor of the caravan, cross-legged like a child, with Aithusa in her lap, stroking her scales, rubbing her fingers up and down the creature's back, head, and neck like she would love up on a cat.

Merlin, across from her, took in this sight, trying to burn it into his mind forever, so he could always remember this -her so near- even when it was all over and she was back in Avalon.

If she _really_ had to go and not come back...

They'd been whispering, in soft undertones so that even if the smugglers woke and came towards the caravan, they wouldn't be immediately overheard. Talking about what would happen _now_.

A fair-sized part of Freya actually loved Avalon, had grown attached to it; even in its loneliness, it was the closest to home she'd been in a long time. On its own merits, she wouldn't be sorry to return. Camelot wasn't really home. But Merlin _was_. And he lived in Camelot...

He'd said it once, and he'd say it again. "I don't want you to go."

Freya glanced from Aithusa to Merlin. "I'm the Lady of the Lake now."

"So this is it?" Merlin asked, pulling a blanket tighter around his shoulders and scooting closer to her.

"I don't want it to be," Freya told him. "I wish...I wish there was... I wish I could come and go as I pleased. But after all that's happened... I can't put you in more danger. Just trying to come and see you nearly put you right into Morgana's hands."

"But she didn't win, Freya," he protested. "She didn't win." Reaching for her hands, he added, "I've never forgotten you; not for a day, not even for a minute. You're not like anyone else I know or ever will."

Shaking her head, Freya pulled her hands away, tucking them under the baby dragon's warm body so he couldn't grasp them again. "There's no chance, Merlin. I have to accept what I am, something I've had a hard time doing since I was cursed. After coming back... All I know, anymore, Merlin, is that I'm going to miss you, as I always have, but I still have so many miles to go... A long way until I'm secure in being the Lady. I returned the sword to you, because I swore one day I would repay you. What if that was meant to conclude our story?"

"No, you can't mean that."

"Merlin..."

"We can find another way."

He'd said that to a woman before, under vastly different circumstances. Pleading with Morgana, in the days when he still believed -or, at least, had _wanted_ to believe- there was good in her, hadn't done any good. All she'd said was, "There _is_ no other way."

For one horrible moment, watching the curves of Freya's lips as she struggled to form an answer, he was worried she would say the same. Softly, her meaning kinder, of course. But it would still hurt. For, in both cases, though what he asked for with his 'find another way' was entirely dissimilar, it was rejection; turning him down for whatever narrow, hurdling path destiny was currently giving out.

Instead, Freya took one hand out from under Aithusa and placed it on Merlin's cheek. "I want that more than anything."

He choked back tears of joy and uncertainty. She had said that to him before, to spare him, and then tried to go on her own. "You won't leave me this time, though?"

"No." She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. "Not this time."

Merlin was so happy he thought his heart would burst. "All right."

There was one thing that bothered Freya still. "Merlin, supposing we _can't_ find that other way?"

"We will."

"A warlock loves a lake-lady," she said pensively, sadly almost. "A dragon can love a fish, but where would they go?"

Merlin kissed her brow and cupped her chin. "Back and forth, Freya, back and forth. Meadows and fields for the dragon."

"And a lake for the fish," Freya added, smiling at that.

"A lake for the fish," Merlin agreed. _The Lake of Avalon for the Lady._


	9. The Rising Sun

~Chapter Nine: The Rising Sun~

ARTHUR WAS UNDER a lot of stress, to put it lightly. His uncle had been found dead in the forest by a weeping serving-girl, no one knew for a certainty who was responsible, bleak funeral arrangements that made the king's broken heart ache anew every time Agravaine's name was mentioned were underway, and -on top of all that- Merlin was nowhere to be found.

Off gallivanting somewhere, oblivious to the tragedy the court was currently going through, no doubt...

Gaius looked grave. He had not liked Agravaine, knowing his true nature as Arthur very well might never, but he understood that something bad overshadowed this traitor's death. One traitor less meant nothing. Morgana would find another way to get her information, he was sure. When she herself could no longer lurk within the castle walls getting information to bring Camelot crashing down, she'd found Agravaine. She would find someone else. And even if she didn't, in the king's mind Agravaine, who had never had even so much as a fleeting moment of true loyalty to him, would have as good as a saint's passing into the next life.

More than that, the physician was worried about Merlin himself. He hadn't heard a word from him since he left. If Agravaine was dead, something must of gone horribly wrong. Merlin had only meant to rescue the sorceress and dragon Morgana was holding prisoner, not kill the king's uncle. If it even _was_ him... That was only speculation, an odd feeling that came and went, in spurting waves of anxious nausea, on Gaius' part.

He knew Merlin better than anyone; he'd seen the look on determination on the young man's face as he left... Merlin wouldn't back down. If it came out to fighting and possibly killing Agravaine or else leaving the captured sorceress and the young dragon he felt so protective of, in their distressing predicament, to remain any longer in Morgana's cruel hands, the old physician, however much it troubled him and kept him up at night, thought he knew perfectly well what his choice would be.

"Gaius." Arthur was coming over to him now.

The old physician willed himself not to gulp or moan. He still had no idea when Merlin would be back. And, thus far, he hadn't done such a great job of convincing Arthur that Merlin was in fact out on an errand for him (he almost broke down and used 'herb picking' again in spite of himself). What kind of errand took _this_ long, after all? Arthur could have the wool pulled over his eyes in some matters, in a way most kings, even the greatest of them, often did by those closest to them, but he wasn't _stupid_...

Unfortunately, the king was probably very much of the opinion that Merlin had gone to the tavern, gotten himself drunk as anything, and then forgotten to find his way back to the citadel to resume his duties.

This was, actually, the longest he'd ever been gone. With poor timing, too, considering what had happened to Agravaine. The state it left Arthur's mind -and temper- in was not a good one.

"Sire?" managed Gaius, at last.

"Where's Merlin?"

"I told you, he's not returned yet..."

"He's at the bloody tavern again, isn't he?" Arthur interjected, impatient.

"N-no." Gaius, for all the effort he put into it, did not sound nearly so sure of himself as he meant to.

"I see." He folded his arms across his chain-mail clad chest and sucked his teeth. "When he comes back, tell him I'm going to throw his sorry hide into the stocks."

"Yes, Sire." Gaius bowed humbly, lowering his head to hide the slight grimace forming on his aged face.

Merlin hadn't been in the stocks in _ages_... To be sure, Gaius couldn't even recall any moment after Uther's death that Arthur had bothered with that particular punishment for his manservant. Oh, he'd had other ways of getting even with Merlin when he annoyed him or was inept in something the king felt he shouldn't have been, or when he thought he was slinking off to the tavern for a pint instead of working, most of these involving dirty stables or else _George_ , but not the _stocks_. Not for a long time now. Well, it was hardly surprising, really. Agravaine's death was upsetting him. The king's heart was broken, the last thing it was capable of at the moment was laughingly coming up with more creative ways to make his manservant shape up.

Another thing worried Gaius, too. Not about Arthur, but in regards to the knights. They claimed to have faced an old sorcerer, possibly the one who'd caused Uther's death, in the forest. Around the same time as Agravaine was found dead, roughly. They claimed the sorcerer, doddering old man though he was, had gotten away, slipped through the fingers of justice yet again. It comforted Gaius somewhat that -unbeknownst to the knights- this was a sighting of Merlin, alive and well, that most likely meant he wasn't dead -or even too badly hurt- in whatever confrontation killed Agravaine.

But, then, why hadn't he come back afterward? And why had he been alone? Where was the sorceress? If he'd rescued her...then...surely...

Maybe he's just dropping her -this sorceress- at home safely, wherever home is for her, Gaius tried to make himself think, logically. And then he'll leave the dragon in a safe place and come right back here. The knights got to him too soon, that's all. He wasn't done yet, wasn't ready to return.

Yes, he _would_ come, even if this time took him a little longer. He'd always come back before, and he would come home this time, too. Merlin always returned. Hard as it was, Gaius had to make himself believe this, swallowing the worst of his constant fears and waiting loss -some small part of him just stashed away ready to break out at a moment's notice to grieve and mourn- or else go mad with worry entirely.

THE LAST TIME Freya had been to _The Rising Sun_ , the obnoxiously quaint little tavern located in the lower town, she'd been left outside locked in a cage, during a massive rainstorm, while Halig went inside to warm himself and drink mead and gamble to his heart's contentment.

This time was as different from that as a wasp is from a butterfly.

This time, she was on foot, hand-in-hand with Merlin, as they walked under the tavern's hanging sign. She still remembered how he'd magically dropped it on Halig's head when he released her from the cage and the bounty hunter noticed it was empty. The memory made her small, soft -rather sleepy, all things considered- smile deepen a little.

Clearly, whoever ran the place had replaced the 'fallen' sign long ago.

And why _should_ it still be lying on the ground? She didn't feel a thing like the Freya who'd been cold, wet, hungry, and miserable to boot in that cage. Not a thing like her. She was a different Freya now. This Freya had hope, and she wasn't cold, even though there was a steady drizzle that morning, as they'd stumbled from the forest into the civilization of the lower town, for she still wore the knights' cape Merlin had given her.

If anyone who saw them in passing thought it strange a girl was wearing the signature cape of a knight of Camelot, nobody said anything about it to them. Probably, it was not as uncommon a sight as one might think. Arthur had had trouble before, having to order new capes to be made when one of his knights gave theirs up to a lady who smiled at them outside the citadel walls or else forgot it behind them after visiting a girl they fancied, or, as the more frequent excuse tended to go, lost it somewhere.

Gwaine, in particular, seemed to 'lose' more capes than all the other knights put together.

And if anyone _had_ felt the need to ask them about it, Freya most likely would have told them the same thing she told Tristan and Isolde: that Merlin had won it in a card game. It needn't have necessarily been at _The Rising Sun_ , anyway. Gwaine frequented pretty much _all_ the taverns within the distance his horse could travel in a day or so.

It was good no one really paid attention to them, for whatever reason -because of how grubby they looked or because of the cape- for then somebody might have noticed that there was a fair-sized bulge where Freya's 'free' arm (the one not attached to the hand that held Merlin's) was.

That, of course, was Aithusa, curled around Freya's arm, safely hidden by the cloak.

As they stepped over the threshold and into the tavern, Freya tripped. Trying to steady her, Merlin gripped her hand tighter. Her fingers, still sore although -thanks to Tristan- in their proper places, ached sharply and she let out a light gasp.

"I'm sorry," he blurted, realizing his mistake. "Are you all right?"

Freya only smiled again. "I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"There's Evoric, the innkeeper, over that way." Merlin gestured towards the man and gently -minding her fingers this time, as if they were made of fragile glass instead of bone and flesh like his own- pulled Freya along.

"Hello," said Evoric slowly in greeting when he saw them coming. He was trying to place Merlin's somewhat familiar face.

He'd seen him several times before, not because -as Arthur believed- he frequented the tavern, but because he'd come along with Gaius to treat persons who'd fallen sick at _The Rising Sun_ before. Once, they'd even come to question Evoric about a miraculous recovery he made from a fatality when Uther suspected sorcery afoot. He'd also visited Gilli, when he'd stayed there. But it had been a good while since then. Indeed, _most_ often, when Merlin had had cause and time enough to come here, Evoric had either not been present or else was busy with one of his guests, off in a corner somewhere.

"We'd like a room, please," Merlin said politely.

Squinting, still struggling to put a name to that distinctive, large-eared face of his, Evoric managed, "The both of you, then?" and glanced briefly at Freya.

"For the time being." Merlin knew he had to get back to Arthur soon, but he'd stay the night at least.

He was in no hurry to leave Freya's side, especially since they hadn't quite worked out the details of what they would do now that they'd decided to find another way, now that he'd gone so far as to bring Freya back to Camelot with him. And, along with that, they still had to think of what to do with Aithusa. Merlin wanted to let her go free again, but Freya had grown attached to the little creature. She understood, of course, that she couldn't keep her, especially as she grew older and bigger, yet she feared Morgana, or another dangerous magic-user, capturing her again. Still, she'd have to let her go sooner or later. Dragons weren't meant to belong to human owners as pets at all, save for the vastly different relationship between them and a Dragonlord.

Evoric made a point of never beating around the bush when it came to young couples that arrived together, unescorted. When you were an innkeeper, it happened practically every day. "Here you are." He held out a key to Merlin.

Merlin reached for it, but Evoric pulled it back, just out of his reach. "Oh, and I'll have my money now."

"Why?"

His eyes shifted over to Freya, then rolled back to Merlin. "Because I'm sure you'll be too distracted to remember later."

Freya blushed, understanding of what the innkeeper thought they were there for dawning, and stared down at her feet, still clinging to Merlin's hand.

Isolde had given Merlin and Freya a little bit of money, just in case they should need it on their way home, on route from the place they left them so they could go their own separate ways. It was this money that Merlin dropped quickly into Evoric's out-stretched hand, taking the key in one following swift movement.

IN HER HOVEL, Morgana reached under the bed for a small box made from rough, unfinished, light-coloured wood.

This box contained something one might not expect a high priestess to possess. It contained a set of beautifully carved chessmen. These had belonged to Morgause. Though she herself had not played much chess, the mother they shared, whom Uther had betrayed Gorlois with, kept them. They'd been a gift from Ygraine, originally, oddly enough, who'd often played with her brothers, both Tristan and Agravaine, and was rather fond of the game.

For Morgana, it wasn't enough. She preferred the real thing. If she captured the false king in a game and made him bow to her, what good did it do? It ended, and Arthur still sat on _her_ throne. She could do what she liked to the wooden king, but none of it would touch Camelot's beloved Arthur; it wasn't a poppet, just ordinary wood. Utterly useless to her cause.

And, yet, she'd kept them...

Well, most of them, anyway. She'd thrown a pawn and a rook at Agravaine's head once when he made her angry, and of course he'd ducked and the little piece had gone sailing straight into the crackling fire burning directly behind him.

Now, she lined the pieces up along the flat edge of the table she'd moved to the fireside, eyes half-closed as she arranged them, not as chessmen are supposed to be arranged, but in a straight line and not in any particular order.

Sighing, she flicked all the pawns but one into the fire.

Her fingers curled around a horse-headed knight. She set it down, then flicked it into the fire, watching it turn to ashes.

" _Morgause_ ," she said softly, as the last sight of the knight-piece disappeared within the rising, licking flames. "Gone." She flicked the last pawn in and added, "Agravaine. Gone, too." No tears were in her eyes, but her voice did crack with faint emotion. They'd died, and Annis had betrayed her, turned to Arthur's side at the first sign of difficulty. Why did every ally she'd ever had always leave her one way or the other? "I loved you...both..." Not an easy admission, but there was no one to hear anyway; the high priestess had no one except herself to talk to for the moment. "Worry not, my friends, your sacrifices shall not be in vain." Her fingers lifted the queen piece and put it before the remaining chessmen.

She flicked them all down until all those that didn't perish in the fire only a few inches away, were bowing to the queen.

FREYA WAS JUST opening a window for some air (the drizzle had died down as evening fell, leaving the breeze outside sweet and cool) when she heard Merlin sigh.

Turning, she saw him sitting on the edge of the bed.

There was such relief, mixed with contentment, in his face. For once, there weren't endless things to worry about. No bounty hunter after them, no curse, no guards on the watch for an escaped Druid girl... And he seemed truly happy. Tired - _exhausted_ , even- but happy.

For once, there was relative peace.

More than anything, Freya wanted it to last. But it couldn't, not without them making some plans first.

Sitting down beside him, she asked, "What if I got a job here?"

Merlin's brow furrowed. "Here? At the tavern?"

Freya nodded. "Yes, here. I could save my earnings until I had enough for a strong horse, one who could take me back and forth from here to the lake of Avalon. We'd be able to see each other sometimes, that way. The distance isn't bad, anyway. I'd have been to see you and gone and back on _foot_ already by now if Agravaine hadn't caught me."

"Freya, it's dangerous." He looked apprehensive. "You would have to hide who you are, _all the time_ , when you're here..."

"I'm used to being on my guard. Besides, _you_ seem to manage all right."

He cocked his head at her. "I've had some close calls."

"You weren't the one who was caught and trapped at the bottom of a _well_ ," she pointed out.

"I was captured by Morgana, too, you know." Merlin shrugged. "She almost forced me to kill Arthur." He winced. "Who, on that happy note, is probably imagining ways to make my life miserable to get back at me for taking off like this..."

Freya giggled.

"It's not funny," he laughed.

"You're right," she said, looking down at her fingers. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

It _is_ , actually, Freya thought, but didn't bother to say out loud. She knew perfectly well Merlin would vehemently deny it. He never blamed her for anything.

He reached over and lifted her chin. "Look at me, Freya."

Her eyes glanced up, staring into his.

"If this really is what you want," Merlin told her, "I can try to talk to Evoric for you."

Yes, it _was_ what she wanted. Not necessarily to be a barmaid at the same tavern that Halig had fancied getting intoxicated at... _That_ , certainly, was not her life's ambition by any stretch the imagination. But she wanted a way to keep on seeing Merlin. A way not to have to go back to Avalon forever, just hoping for a glimpse of him from time to time. _Another way_. The very thing they had decided that, together, they would find.

Freya nodded. "I want this more than _anything_." A simple job, honest and good, whatever the setbacks, here in Camelot... An excuse to be close to him and still be the Lady of the Lake, just not so anybody knew about it. "If you'll help me, Merlin."

For a moment, he hesitated. "Freya..."

"What's wrong?" Her face fell. Had he changed his mind? Did he think it best if they just gave up and went their separate ways after all? Maybe he was already beginning to regret so much as bringing her to the tavern with him.

"It's just..." He gazed at her. She was so beautiful, like a princess... A true Lady of the Lake, in all ways. And to think she was going to spend her days washing pots and bringing large, shouting men tankards of mead... _Wasting_ herself, for his sake... How could he explain the way the mere mental image of that made him feel? "Freya, you've been through hell, and you still look like a princess."

She exhaled, realizing she was holding her breath momentarily, and sighed. "Only to you, Merlin."

"But, leaving you here, in a place like _this_..." _You're the Lady of the Lake!_

"No one here can hurt me." Freya smiled. "And you know I wasn't born a Lady."

Giving in, Merlin leaned forward and kissed her. "I'll speak to Evoric in the morning. For now, let's just try to get some rest. I can't say how good it is to sleep in a proper bed again!" He stretched out and let his head sink back into the soft pillows.

Freya clasped his wrist, holding it close to her waist as she lowered herself down beside him. "Will you hold me?"

"Of course." He wrapped the arm attached to the wrist she was holding around her and pulled her closer. For a moment, as they closed their eyes, he was silent, but something -a memory, gently tugging at him- made him whisper, just before he fell asleep, "I'll see you in the morning, Freya."

Snuggling in his arms and under the warm blankets, Freya murmured, "Thank you." _Thank you for coming to rescue me._

Shortly before dawn, they would awaken suddenly to find Aithusa gone -a little distraught at first, before they'd realize the window had remained open and no one had _taken_ Aithusa; she'd merely flown away on her own.

Perhaps, in her own way, she had simply known it was time to leave them.


	10. Gwaine and Arthur are Surprised

_~Chapter 10: Gwaine and Arthur are Surprised~_

HE SHOULD HAVE left, Merlin knew, as soon as Freya was situated and both Evoric and the least reputable-looking of the burly fellows who frequented _The Rising Sun_ were wholly aware that if anything even remotely bad happened to her in their tavern -if _anybody_ messed with the pretty faced new barmaid- he'd be coming after their sorry backsides with a vengeance.

He _should_ have done.

But, of course, he didn't.

He knew Arthur needed him, and was probably getting more furious in regards to his absence with each second that went by, but he felt the most irresistible urge to linger. After what he'd gone through, taking on Morgana and Agravaine and the knights of Camelot, the cheery tavern seemed an awfully nice place to be at. Everyone was friendly (well, that was hardly surprising, they were all _drinking_ , after all) and Freya's smiles, which she frequently directed at him, looking over her shoulder as she carried trays or cleaned tables, only got sweeter as the day dragged on.

Surely Arthur could wait just _one_ more day... Gaius would be worried, of course, but he'd soon remedy that...

Yes, he'd stay and keep an eye on Freya a little longer. One more day here, then back to his life as Arthur's manservant.

And, in the meantime, it couldn't hurt to have a quick drink...

Merlin figured his labors earned _that_ much, at least.

ARTHUR HAD GOTTEN tired of waiting. And, perhaps, some small part of him was a little worried -uncertain, to be more exact- that something was wrong. He would never have admitted it, but deep down, when Merlin was away for longer than a day or so, he always felt a little twinge of fear he couldn't explain. It was a tiny thing, barely noteworthy, and he mostly tended to just brush it off. After all, what was there to worry _about_? What was there to fear? Merlin was in the bloody tavern. He knew he was. That was _always_ where Merlin slunk off to. So long as he didn't open that big mouth of his and get himself into a bar-fight, he was probably just fine.

That was the real reason Arthur was often so cross when his manservant returned from his little tavern adventures. That stupid, nagging worry that came out of nowhere, turning out to be for no reason, as he'd known -logically- all along it would. He blamed it on Merlin. Stupid Merlin, who had made him worry needlessly.

And that was in addition to the aggravation of having to make do without a servant until he decided to find his way back...

This time, he decided, he would go and fetch him. He'd been going to send Gwaine to fish Merlin out of _The Rising Sun_ , but then he had thought about what that meant. Sending _Gwaine_ into a tavern with only vague instructions to order his manservant to get his lousy backside back to work... _Gwaine_ , of all people. Nope, that wouldn't end well.

He would end up out a manservant _and_ a knight when he needed them most.

Gwaine would indeed go, but Arthur would accompany him, dressed in the plain blue cloak Merlin had loaned him some years back when he'd wanted to go about in the lower town unnoticed while he was staying with Gwen. Purely as a precaution, of course. Just to make sure Gwaine didn't get distracted by a tankard of mead -or some giggling common girl with a nice face hanging out her laundry- himself.

And so, it was no more than an hour till noon when the the king (Gwaine at his side) reached _The Rising Sun_ , none the better for the walk, ready to kill himself a manservant.

A large number of scruffy-looking fellows were slumped outside of the tavern. Some willingly, because they deemed this -for whatever reason- the more comfortable place to mill about aimlessly, and others by force, because Evoric had kicked them out for starting trouble too early.

Gwaine waved to a few of his friends in this group, only two of which were actually sober enough to return the gesture.

"Come on." Arthur grabbed the knight's arm and tugged him along.

They stepped over the threshold and were greeted by Evoric himself, just as he finished settling a debate between two large guests who had been arm-wrestling in the corner nearest the door.

"Greetings, gentlemen. What can I get for you today?" Evoric didn't know Arthur's face at once as the king, but naturally he knew Gwaine straight off. "Who is your friend, Gwaine?"

Arthur cut him off before Gwaine could answer, lest he start ordering them drinks. "I'm afraid we aren't staying. We're looking for someone."

"We get a lot of people..." began Evoric.

"No, you'd remember this one," Arthur assured him. "Lanky, dark-hair, big ears. Appalling manners. Shabbily dressed. Seems to spend most of his time here, actually."

Evoric considered. All except that last one, about _frequent_ visits to his tavern, sounded an awful lot like...

"His name's Merlin," Gwaine volunteered.

"He's around here somewhere," Evoric sighed. "Probably still making eyes at that new barmaid he brought here."

Gwaine's interest was caught. "New Barmaid?"

Evoric chuckled. "Your man came in here with her, holding hands, and now he won't leave her side. Always flirting with her, trying to touch her, or gazing across the tavern with this lovesick look on that face of his." She was on a break, at the moment, so he was almost _certainly_ with her now...

Arthur nodded grimly. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." Evoric shrugged. "Be sure to let me know if you require anything else."

"I would _love_ a-" started Gwaine, whose throat was feeling a bit parched from the walk.

Arthur shook his head.

Gwaine sighed and followed him towards the back of the tavern to look for Merlin.

At last they spotted him. He was in a locked embrace with a small, dark-headed woman, kissing her repeatedly on the mouth, while they leaned against the wall.

Gwaine smiled. "Way to go, _Merlin_!" he muttered under his breath.

Rolling his eyes, Arthur marched over to them, glowering, just as the woman was locking her wrists behind Merlin's neck, pulling herself further still into his grasp, returning his kisses.

It was the mysterious young woman who noticed first. One of her eyes opened a crack, and she realized Arthur and Gwaine were standing right there. Gwaine looked pleased, but Arthur -who she recognized immediately as the man who'd struck her a mortal blow when she was a Bastet all those years ago- seemed none too thrilled, albeit a little shocked as well.

Blushing, Freya pulled away from Arthur's manservant and lowered her eyes respectfully from the king's gaze.

Merlin grimaced. "Arthur is standing right behind me, isn't he?"

Freya flinched sympathetically and nodded.

Slowly, he let go of Freya's elbows, which he'd still had a light grip on even though she'd pulled away, and turned to face his master. "Hello, Arthur."

Gwaine, meanwhile, was staring at Freya in pure bafflement. How was this even fair? The last barmaid _he'd_ been served by at this very tavern had looked like a blasted _elephant._.. This girl, on the other hand, was _beautiful_ , to put it lightly. Merlin sure could pick them. If these were the kind of girls he ran into on his little adventures whenever Arthur couldn't find him, it was no _wonder_ he was always taking off like he did!

"Arthur!" Merlin exclaimed, grinning sheepishly. "I was just on my way back."

"Yes, I can see that." Arthur folded his arms across his chest.

"Really, I was..." he tried.

Gwaine gave him two thumbs up.

Freya's blush darkened and she slunk as far into the shadows as possible, embarrassed to be the cause of all this. If it weren't for _her_ , Merlin would have never left Camelot to begin with, much less have been discovered here at the tavern at the worst possible moment.

Arthur tapped the toe of his boot on the tavern's wooden floor impatiently and arched an eyebrow.

"I'm in a lot of trouble, aren't I?" asked Merlin.

"Figure that out all on your own, did you?" Arthur snapped.

"There is...a perfectly logical explanation for this..."

Gwaine was muttering to himself. "She's Merlin's girl... She's Merlin's girl..."

Arthur ignored him. "And I look forward to hearing it. Right after you get out of the stocks."

"The _stocks_?" Merlin's voice got a little higher pitched with indignation. _With my luck, I'll end up with some crazy farmer pelting me with a fresh_ potato _!_

"The hell with it." Gwaine nudged his way past Arthur and offered his hand to Freya. "Hello, I'm Gwaine."

"Hello," Freya managed shyly, taking a step closer to Merlin despite the fact that she knew perfectly well Arthur would be taking him away any second now.

"You look like a princess," Gwaine stated.

Looking back at her over his shoulder, Merlin whispered, "Told you."

"So I'm guessing," he went on, "your name's something grand, like Sophia or Esmeralda. Or Elaine." Winking, he proclaimed, "Yes, that must be it. _Princess Elaine_!"

People were starting to stare, making her more and more uncomfortable. "I'm Freya," she squeaked out.

"Well, _Freya_ ," Gwaine sighed, seeming to get the hint that there was only one man she was interested in, and it wasn't _him_ , "Merlin's a lucky man."

"After I'm through with him," Arthur swore, "you aren't going to be able to say that." He grabbed Merlin by the ear and started pulling him away. "Say goodbye to your...erm... _lady friend_ , Merlin." Like Gwaine, he was still secretly trying to work out how _Merlin_ had gotten someone like _her_. "We're leaving."

Somehow or other, Merlin managed to break loose from Arthur's hold on his ear while he was temporarily distracted by a short, stocky-looking man who reeked of fumes from the brewery, coming in with a barrel of ale and accidentally bumping into him.

He ran back to Freya and kissed her goodbye.

Arthur grabbed him again -this time by the upper arm- and pulled him all the way out of the tavern.

"I'll see you soon," he called back to her.

"Yes," Arthur agreed sardonically. "I'm sure she'll be first in line to pelt you with fruit this afternoon."

They had finally gotten out the tavern door, when Merlin noticed a pair of familiar faces standing there, as if waiting for him.

To anyone else, they would have looked pretty inconspicuous. No one would have suspected what Merlin knew: that they were actually smugglers, taking quite a risk coming here, showing their faces in Camelot.

Of course, though, they were disguised; they weren't _idiots_. Isolde was in a reddish peasant dress that looked like something a handmaid might wear, and Tristan had a false scar drawn on one cheek, as well as ashes in his hair to make him look older than he really was (with his somewhat weather-beaten, serious face that looked older than his partner even under _normal_ circumstances, on the best of days, this seemed to work out marvelously).

But, wondered Merlin, what could they want here in Camelot?

"Merlin, there you are." Isolde shot over to his side. "Glad we caught you. We're moving out. Going home to our village."

They had no village, but it was a good pretense. Merlin nodded as though he personally knew the village they were referencing.

"But we have something for you." She gestured over to Tristan, who Merlin now saw was carrying a fair-sized object wrapped in a faded blue cloth.

"A present," said Tristan, half-grinning as he pulled off the cloth and set the object down by his feet. "For the little one."

It was a baby's cradle, one beautifully crafted from dark rose-wood. What was most remarkable, however, was that the headboard was carved in the shape of a dragon, mouth opened, spewing out engraved whiffs of smoke.

A _dragon_... Merlin's eyes widened. Did they _suspect_...? Or had they secretly known what Aithusa was all along but never said anything?

His gaze shifted to Isolde, whose eye twitched into a little wink.

Arthur's face had gone pale, like someone had just dumped a bucket of water over his head.

Tristan chuckled at his shock, and Merlin suddenly realized that Tristan had no idea who this was. He had _no idea_ that this man -dressed in a plain cloak and out among the common people- he was laughing at in easy amusement, was the king whose taxes he so despised.

As for Gwaine, who had also heard, he looked from Merlin's face (which was quickly getting red), to Freya the barmaid (she was standing in the tavern doorway, having followed them out to watch Merlin go, also still blushing madly), and then back again.

"You, Merlin," he said, gasping to catch his breath, "are my new hero."


End file.
